


Damnit John

by angel2u



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Always Female Rodney, F/M, Fem!Rodney Mckay, Female Rodney McKay, genderbender, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel2u/pseuds/angel2u
Summary: Dr. Meredith Mckay and Major John Sheppard have known each other for years. They don't, however known what the other does for a living outside of scientist and military black ops. That changes when they both get assigned to work in Antarctica.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Stargate franchise is not mine, however anything you don't recognize from the show is mine unless I credit it elsewhere.

Before anything else, let’s get something straight, Dr. Meredith (Call me Mare) Rodney (damn her mother) McKay loves her crazy, adrenaline-junkie, flirt of a husband. She has for years (even though it drives her crazy that he won’t join MENSA with her). Hell, she’s known him for 17 years. Unfortunately, because of her job she can’t be as completely honest with him as she wishes she could be.

Now what one needs to know to understand this is that Meredith works for a top secret, can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you, cloak and dagger government agency. She is, to say the least, a genius that was brought into the security clearance game after she had finished her second PhD. At first, she worked exclusively at Area 51 (yeah, it’s real). But in 2002 she was brought into the top secret, can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you, cloak and dagger government agency main headquarters, the Stargate (explanation to come later) Command (SGC for short), for an issue that she thought was theoretical until she arrived. Not that her berating and nitpicking the, quite frankly, glaringly obvious flaws in the dialing sequence that was created by Samantha Carter helped matters. After that, Meredith was shipped off to Russia for four months; that pissed off both her and her husband. It was hard enough to get time off and find a place to be with each other every few months when one of them was constantly stateside, but both of them out of the country? She was brought back to the top secret, can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you, cloak and dagger government agency headquarters to help keep the Earth from being blown up by (wait for it) aliens. Oh yeah, aliens exist, and quite a few different ones at that. Also, there are groups of them that, if you couldn’t figure out from what you have previously read, are trying to kill humans. Anyways, after helping save Earth she retreated back to Area 51 to study Ancient technology (Stargates and other thing). Half way through 2003, Mare was shipped off to an Ancient outpost. In Antarctica. Where she is now. Without her husband to keep her warm. And from killing all the imbeciles that she works with.

So yeah, Meredith has some things that she can’t share with her husband, like how aliens exist, or that she works in the FREEZING COLD ANTARCTIC! But he’s fine with it because he has secrets from her too. Because he is in (was in) the United States military black ops, Air Force edition. Quite frankly, though her secrets are cooler, and her security clearance is probably, technically higher, he still can’t tell her anything about what he does (did) for the military. Well, he was able to tell her that he disobeyed a direct order from a superior and simultaneously got promoted to major and reassigned to the middle of nowhere with snow expanding from all directions.

Coincidently, they both were assigned to Antarctica. Sadly, neither of them knew this, and wouldn’t know this until her husband, Major John Sheppard was almost shot down by a glowing missile while flying General Jack O’Neill to the outpost.


	2. Better Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off to the lost city of Altantis

Dr. Meredith McKay loves her job.  Sure, it might not be glamorous, or in a warm environment, or near her husband…  Okay maybe she doesn’t _love_ her job, but she really, really likes it.  Because she gets to study ( _cough_ playwith _cough_ ) extremely advanced technology created by the Ancients!  The Ancients, if you haven’t been told, were a race of highly advanced humanoid aliens that came to the Milky Way thousands of years ago.  They were the race that created the Stargate, an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) creating device that can connect two planets together for travel.  They also created a chair. A chair that, frustratingly, Meredith could not activate by herself.  Oh she tried. Twice. And with a computer interface. But it was determined that Ancient technology will only activate if the user has a specific gene, thus called the Ancient Technology Activation gene or ATA gene for short. A gene that Meredith _**does not have**_.  So Meredith is relegated to using people with the gene, unfortunately.

“Damn it Carson, just get into the chair!” Meredith exclaims, exasperated.  She’d been attempting to get him to sit in the Ancient chair for five minutes so that she could get a reading on the output that the chair gives off.

“Fine,” Carson Beckett, the Scottish doctor of the outpost, sat down on the chair.  He waits ten seconds before jumping back up, “Ya see?  Nothin’! I could sit in tha’ bloody chair all day long an’ nothin’ will happen.”

Carson started to walk out of the room.

“Carson, get back here!” Meredith shouts, annoyance peaking.

Carson continues out, passing the head of the expedition, Elizabeth Weir, “Excuse me, Doctor Weir.”

Meredith strode toward Elizabeth, loudly complaining about Carson’s lack of initiative, “This guy’s not even trying!”

Elizabeth looked at Meredith, “He’s the one who first discovered that the gene was the reason behind Ancient technology activating.”

“Yeah, well he says he wished he never had it,” Meredith responds, irritated.

“Really?” Elizabeth asks incredulously.

“Yeah, can you believe that?”

“Well we can always try testing you a third time Mare,” Elizabeth jokes.

“That’s not funny,” Meredith replies, offended.  Why wouldn’t she want to make sure she didn’t have the ATA gene?  If she did, she wouldn’t have to deal with other people while studying the Ancient technology.

“We’ve only found a handful of people who are genetically compatible with Ancient technology,” Elizabeth says, walking toward the chair, “and despite your heroic efforts to interface ours with theirs, we need every one of them to sit in this chair.” Elizabeth looks down at the chair in contemplation before looking at Meredith, “Including Doctor Beckett.”

“What are we supposed to do? He’s afraid of the thing,” Meredith gestures to the chair.

“This chair controls the most power weapons known to human kind,” Elizabeth solemnly says as she gazes at the chair, “I’m afraid of the thing.”

Meredith stares at her in disgruntlement as Elizabeth continues, “But every time someone sits in it we learn something new about the ancients who built this outpost.  Doctor Beckett should be proud that he’s genetically advanced!”

“He’s not more advanced,” Meredith corrects, because he’s not, it’s a fucking gene that anyone could have. “It’s a randomly occurring characteristic determined by your ancestors.”

Elizabeth looks at Meredith in amusement, “This really bothers you.  This whole gene thing, huh?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely overcome with envy,” Meredith responds dryly.

“Ah, just the people I need to see,” They were interrupted by Dr. Daniel Jackson, the leading linguist and archeologist of the SGC.  He turned back down the corridor and left their sight before rushing back, “Come with me.”

Elizabeth and Meredith looked at each other before following.

“We’ve been getting closer and closer to finding the lost city, but we’ve been looking in the wrong place all along,” Daniel walks up to a white board in the room he lead Elizabeth and Meredith to, “Now we thought that we had a Stargate address, 6 symbols representing coordinates in space that determined the location of the planet the Ancients went to after they left Antarctica.  Now, recently, we’ve determined a 7th symbol,” Daniel drew the symbol on to the white board.

“The point of origin, Earth,” Elizabeth states.

Daniel looks at her, “That’s not it.”

“Then your address must be incorrect,” Meredith crosses her arms.

“Not incorrect,” Daniel corrects, “Incomplete,” Daniel draws a second symbol in front of the previous one.

“What are you saying Doctor Jackson?” Elizabeth grins.

“It’s an eight symbol address.  What we’re looking for maybe further away than we ever imagined the Stargate could reach.”

“Atlantis?” Meredith questions quietly in disbelief.

“Atlantis.” Daniel confirms, “I think we can go there.”

“Amazing.” Elizabeth says.

“Well that’s great and all, but I have a voodoo practitioner to force into a chair,” Meredith sighs, breaking the subtle excitement running a current between them.

“Yes,” Elizabeth agrees, shaking herself out of it, “and I have to finish preparing for General O’Neill’s arrival.

With that, Meredith heads off to find Carson. Unaware that her husband is the pilot flying General O’Neill to where she is currently.

~*~*~*~*~

“Carson,” Meredith sings as she corners him in the infirmary, “There’s no getting out of this,” Meredith pulls him out of the infirmary by his arm, “Trust me. I’ve tried.”

“No, I canna do it,” Carson tries talking his way out having to sit in the chair.

“Yes, you can,” Meredith says and she walks him to the chair room.

“Look, we’ve been through this, Imma doctor, a medical doctor,” Carson states, as though Meredith has forgotten that he practices voodoo.

“Carson,” Meredith stops them right in front of the chair and makes him face her, “I know you don’t want to do this, but it’s mandatory for everyone who has the ATA gene.  All you have to do is turn it on for a few minutes while I take some data, then turn it back off.  Then you’re done.”

“Mare, ya don’ understan’ I break thin’s like this.”

“This has survived for thousands of years intact,” Meredith states as she preps the chair, “and it will survive thousands more after you’ve sat in it,” Meredith turns to Carson and looks at him pointedly, “Now sit down, close your eyes, and concentrate.”

“Urg,” Carson groans as he sits in the chair.  He waits five seconds, “Again nothing,” and goes to get up only to be stopped by Meredith.

“Just try to imagine where we are in the solar system,” Meredith tells him.

Carson closes his eyes in concentration.  Meredith focuses on her tablet to read the data the chair is producing.  Carson clenches his eyes and says, “Wait, I think I’m doin’ somethin’.” Carson opens his eyes and looks at Meredith, “It could be lunch related.”

Meredith looks at him in irritation, “Shut up, and concentrate. Try again.”

Carson looks at her nervously and closes his eyes. A few seconds go by before the chair lights up and reclines back. Carson’s eyes open in surprise and he looks around. Meredith catches sight of an Ancient device that was being studied light up at the same time.  The device (drone, it was definitely a drone) rockets off of the table it had been on and starts to ricochet off the walls, before it flies up the elevator shaft to the surface above.

“What did I do?” Carson asks as he watches the device leave his sight.

Meredith rushes over to one of the computers set up in the room.

“I told ya I was the wrong person,” Carson says to Elizabeth as she rushes over.

“It doesn’t matter, just do something!” Meredith exclaims as she looks over to him.

“Like what?”

“Carson,” Elizabeth says, “Concentrate on shutting down that drone before it hurts someone,” Carson looks at her for a second before shutting his eyes to do as she says.

A few tense minutes pass before Carson opens his eyes with a gasp, “I think I did it.”

Everyone is still tense until a young Lieutenant, named Ford, comes up behind Daniel, who had stopped at the archway into the room, with his hand on his com, “The Major piloting General O’Neill’s helicopter reports that the drone appears to be incapacitated. And General O’Neill’s helicopter was unharmed and is on its way again,” everyone in the room lets out a sigh of relief, “He says that they are 7 minutes out.”

“Thank God,” Elizabeth sighs.

“Holy crap,” Carson gasps out.

“Yeah, okay. Carson get out of that fucking chair,” Meredith says, looking at said man. Carson scrambles out of the chair in a hurry. Meredith looks at him, sighs, and then walks out to go to the room she and Elizabeth would be meeting the General in while looking at her tablet.

~*~*~*~*~

Meredith, Elizabeth, Daniel, and General O’Neill were standing around a table as Daniel talked to the General, “We figure that the Ancients packed up and left between five and ten million years ago.”

“In their flying city,” O’Neill cut in.

“Yes, Sir,” Daniel confirms.

“Right,” O’Neill drawls.

“What?”

“Flying city?”

“Well, keep in mind this is the race that built the Stargates. They did everything big.”

“So why did they leave?”

“Um, who knows? On earth they suffered from a plague. Uh, maybe some of them were trying to start over, seeding life in a new galaxy. The point is we know where they went.”

“Pegasus.”

“Yes, it’s a dwarf galaxy in the local group.”

“After all this time, is there any hope of meeting them?” Meredith cuts in.

“Well, who knows, but isn’t that reason enough to go?” Daniel answers.  Meredith nods her head in concession and looks down at the table.

“I’ve been choosing members for this expedition for months doctor,” Elizabeth says excitedly as she looks at Daniel, “I’m not the one who needs convincing.”

Everyone looks to O’Neill, “Well, I’m convinced,” he looks at Daniel, “Have fun.”

Daniel looks over at Meredith, “It…It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“We need a Zed-PM to power the gate,” Meredith states as she turns to the General.

“A what?” O’Neill asks in confusion.

“ZPM,” Daniel whispers across the table, “She...She’s Canadian.”

“I’m sorry,” O’Neill tells Meredith.

Meredith, offended (how could you hate Canada?) says, “The Zero Point Module, General.  The Ancient power source you recovered from the Proclarush Taonas.  It’s now powering the outpost defenses,” Meredith starts moving her hands as she gets further into her description, “I’ve since determined it derives its power from vacuum energy from a self-contained region of subspace time.”

“That was a waste of a perfectly good explanation,” The General informs her, “The answer’s no.”

“Jack, you know gating to another galaxy requires and enormous amount of energy,” Daniel says.

“Yes, I do,” Jack states, “Find another way.”

“There is no other way,” Daniel says vehemently.

There’s a short silence while O’Neill looks at everyone in the room in contemplation, “You think there are more of these,” O’Neill glances at Meredith, “Zed things, in Atlantis?”

“Yes, and who knows what else we could find,” Daniel confirms, “This isn’t just some civilization.  We’re talking about the gate builders.”

“Not to mention the potential wealth of knowledge and technology, it outweighs anything we’ve come across since we’ve stepped through the Stargate,” Elizabeth interjects.

“Well,” the General says, “With the amount of energy you need to make this trek, odds are it’ll be one way.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth agrees, “we know, but the benefit to humanity is far greater than the risk General. And it is a risk every one of my expedition members is willing to take.”

Meredith looks down, thinking of the conversation she is planning on having with Elizabeth about her husband and whether she would be able to get him on the expedition.

Before anything else could be said, Carson appears in the doorway, “Doctor Weir, ya need ta come see this.”

They all follow Carson to the chair room, where the chair sat, occupied, and activated.  Meredith rushes to one of the computers and looks at the data showing on the screen.

Behind her she hears Elizabeth ask, “Who is this?”

“I said don’t touch anything,” O’Neill says.

She thinks she hears a familiar voice say, “I…I just sat down.”

Turning around while looking at her tablet, Meredith says, “Think about where we are in the solar system.”

Looking up she sees a holographic image of the solar system come to life above the group. The guy in the chair asks, “Did I do that?”

“Yes, you di-“ Meredith looks to the guy in the chair. She instantly recognizes the face, “-d.  John?”

The guy sitting in the chair turns to look at her as well, and sits up while staring at her incredulously, turning off the chair, “Mare? What are you doing here?”

“I work here!” Meredith answers, staring back at the guy, “Better question, what are _you_ doing here?”

“I have an even better question,” O’Neill cuts in causing the two to look at him, “How do you two know each other?”

Meredith and John glance at each other and then back at the group, “We’re married.”

~*~*~*~*~

While waiting for General O’Neill to finish talking to Elizabeth, Meredith and John stand near the elevator.

“So,” John starts, after staring at his wife for a few minutes, “This sounds a hell’va lot like Wormhole X-Treme.”

“Well from what I understand Wormhole X-treme is based off of the SGC,” Meredith smiles.

“And aliens?” John asks.

“And aliens,” Meredith agrees.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“For one, you didn’t have the security clearance, and after you got that black mark on your record they wouldn’t clear you.  And for another, you wouldn’t have believed me,” Meredith crosses her arms.

“True,” John concedes before looking around the area, “So how long have you been here?”

“About six months,” Meredith says, “I assume you were reassigned to McMurdo.  I guess that explains the snow in all directions comment.”

“Yeah,” John agrees before looking at her, “How come we haven’t run into each other over there?”

“I’ve been staying here doing my research. It takes too long to traverse the ice fields.”

“Don’t you eat?”

“Yes,” Meredith sighs, “You know I have to because of my hypoglycemia.”

“Just making sure,” John says before wrapping her in a hug, “God, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Meredith kisses him.

“You know what we could’ve been doing this whole time?” John asks as they separate from the kiss.

“Been having sex?” Meredith smirks.

“Been having SEX!” John agrees, “It’s been way to cold when I go to sleep.”

Meredith pushes him away towards the elevator and starts walking away to get back to work, “Go do your flight checks, you flirt.”

John walks to the elevator before turning around, “Hey Mare?” He calls out to her.

Meredith stops and turns around, “Yeah?”

“I love you,” John says loudly before walking into the elevator with a smirk.

“I know,” Meredith states back, just as loudly, “How could you not?”

Meredith disappears from his view before he could say anything else that could possibly undermine the stone cold mask that she uses on her scientists.

~*~*~*~*~

The next month was busy with preparations for the upcoming expedition.  Meredith and John were both reacquainting themselves with each other and getting ready for the trip to another galaxy.  There were a few fights between them, most frequently about how Meredith was planning on going to another galaxy without telling him, and a lot of make ups, usually with chocolate.

Eventually the time came for the expedition to head off to Atlantis.

~*~*~*~*~

Meredith stands in the power room of the SGC, interfacing the Zed-PM to the Stargate systems.

“Okay,” The sound of a component locking into place is heard, “It should work now.”

“Okay, Sergeant, give it a try,” Meredith says as she readies the Zed-PM to be placed in to the interfacing device, “The Zed-PM should light up when it senses the connection to the gate.”

The crystal looking object clicks into place and Meredith signals the Sergeant to activate the connection.  After a second the Zed-PM starts to glow like stained glass.  Meredith smiles in joyous relief, “Yes.”

Meredith puts her radio to her mouth, “Doctor Weir, it’s working.”

“Good job, Mare,” Elizabeth’s voice sounds back, “Now, head to the control room.”

“On my way,” Meredith looks at the people who were in the room with her, “Good job.”

Meredith enters the control as the fifth chevron of the gate encoded and moves to stand next to Elizabeth. She looks out to the room beyond and gazes at the Stargate that sits in the middle.

“Chevron Six, Encoded.”

“This is it,” Elizabeth says breathlessly. She looks over to Meredith who is watching the encoding process with similar excitement, “Seriously doctor, calm down, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Chevron Seven, Encoded.”

Meredith looks at Elizabeth, “I’ve never been so excited in my life.”

“Chevron Eight is locked.”

The circular arc in the room outside the control room fills up with a blue liquid looking substance.  A massive jet of the substance explodes out a few feet before falling back to the Arc.  The people in the Stargate room start cheering the successful dialing sequence.

“Send the MALP through,” Elizabeth says.

The MALP, a robotic vehicle that had been sitting in front of the gate, starts to move forward.  It moves until it hits the point where the blue substance starts and continues until it disappears from view. One of the screens in the control room blinks the words ‘No Signal’ a few times before showing a black screen.

“We have map telemetry.”

“What is it that we’re looking at?” Elizabeth asks, looking at the screen.

 “Switching to zero locks,” Meredith sits down in front of the screen as it slowly starts to change as the MALP lights up a pillar. “The radar indicates a large room.”

“Structurally intact?” Daniel asks.

“The sensors say there’s oxygen and no measurable toxins,” Meredith studies the data showing up, “We have viable life support.”

Meredith gets up and walks over to Elizabeth before she leaves the room, “Looks like we’re not getting out of this.”

Meredith heads to the Stargate room to gather her belongings for gate travel.  She watches as Colonel Sumner, the head of the expedition’s military, gets ready to go through the Stargate, as she pulls on her backpack and grabs one of the many containers holding her equipment.

“Colonel Sumner! Wait!” is called out in the room as Elizabeth rushes towards the gate.  She stops only to put her backpack on and walk up to Sumner, “We go through together.”

Sumner seems to consider it before nodding and turning to his marines, “Fair enough.”

Sumner and the marines walk into the wormhole’s event horizon and disappear.  Elizabeth turns to look at the people ready to embark on the expedition. She smiles before turning around and walking into the Stargate.

O’Neill’s voice rings out a few seconds after, “Expedition team, move out!”

Meredith sees her husband walk up to the gate with Lieutenant Ford before they too disappear into the wormhole.  She looks down at her things to make sure she has everything and then walks over to where she sees Carson standing.

“You ready?” she asks, smiling as they wait their turn.

“No, but I do nah really hav’a choice, now do I?” he asks in a sardonic tone.

“No,” she agrees as they start to move toward the gate, “I’ll drag you through there kicking and screaming.”

“Aye, o’course ya would, lass,” Carson sighs as they get to the front of the gate, “O’course ya would.”

With that, they walk across the event horizon and are dragged across the Milky Way to the Pegasus Galaxy.  They step out of the gate on the other end of the portal into a high ceilinged room that is now lit up, unlike what Meredith had seen on the screen back at the SGC.  Meredith sees her husband and walks toward him.

“Everyone else, find an open space and park it until told otherwise,” Sumner barks at the arriving expedition members.

John and Meredith start toward a staircase that is directly across from the Stargate, John with his gun at the ready, prepared to shoot in case of hostile contact, and Meredith looking around in awe. As they start to climb, the stairs begin to light up for them.

“Who’s doing that,” Echoes throughout the room as Elizabeth asks what everyone else is thinking.

Sumner coms out, “Security teams, any alien contact?”

John and Meredith reach the top of the staircase as the negative answers are given.  To their left a sort of control room lights up.  John turns to look into the room.  Seeing nothing but covered consoles, he turns to Meredith as she faces him and says, “The lights are coming on by themselves.”

They walk into the console room and Meredith heads straight toward one of the consoles and starts to lift up the shiny, gauzy material covering it.  As she pulls it off she hears Elizabeth say, “General O’Neill, Atlantis base offers greetings from the Pegasus Galaxy.  You may cut power to the gate.”

Meredith glances up to see the gate shut off before moving on to another console and pulling the covering off of it as well.  As she pulls off the last covering, she rolls her eyes as she hears John say, “I didn’t touch anything.”

“Relax, Major,” Elizabeth reassures him, “It’s like the entire complex is sensing our presence and coming to life.”

Meredith looks at them, “Yeah, John. Relax.  Anyway,” Meredith turns back to the console she had just uncovered, “This is the control room, and this is obviously their version of a DHD.”

John comes up behind her and looks over her shoulder, “Yeah, Obviously.”

Dismissing his sarcasm for the moment, Meredith turns around to the console behind and to the left of her, “And this one could be the power control systems. Possibly a computer interface or something!”

“Hey, hey,” Elizabeth says, stopping Meredith before she can start on a tangent, “Why don’t you find out?”

Meredith looks up from where she has bent down to study the console, “Oh. Right.”

Over the radios Sumner starts talking, “Doctor Weir, Colonel Sumner.  Can you and Sheppard come meet me?  I’m three levels down.”

“Right away,” Elizabeth responds. She turns, glances at John, then Meredith, and walks out.

John turns to look at Meredith while she begins to hook up her laptop to Atlantis’s systems. He moves to leave the room, “Have fun, sweetie.”

“You too, babe,” Meredith says while she connects her laptop. 

“Wow,” she looks over and sees Dr. Peter Grodin, one of the scientists she befriended in Antarctica, “I don’t think that will ever not be weird.”

Meredith looks back at her laptop and sees that it has connected to the Atlantean network, “What do mean?”

“The knowledge that you have a significant other,” Peter replies, “Hell! That you’re married.”

“Why? Because I’m so unapproachable?” Meredith asks as she accesses the information for the city’s systems.

“Um, yeah that’s exac-“

“Oh my god,” Meredith cut him off in disbelief.

“What?” Peter turned to look at her.

Meredith turned and looked at Peter with widened eyes, “We’re underwater.”

“We’re what?” Peter says, astonished.

“We’re underwater.  There appears to be a force field of some kind protecting the city from being flooded,” Meredith gets up out of her chair, “I need to report this to Dr. Weir. Peter, continue finding out more about the city. If you find something, tell me.”

Meredith hears Peter’s affirmation as she starts heading down to where John and Elizabeth went. 

As she passes a room on her way, she hears Carson call her, “Hey Mare, ‘ave you seen Doctor Weir anywhere?”

“I’m heading down to talk to her right now,” Meredith answers, looking into the room.

“Could ya tell her tha’ I think she should come see this,” Carson asks.

“Can do,” Meredith says as she continues on her way.

When she arrives a few minutes later she finds John, Elizabeth, and Sumner gazing out of a window that stretches the length of the wall.

“Colonel! Doctor Weir!” Meredith calls out to gain their attention.

John turns to look at Meredith and grins, “We’re underwater!”

“Yes,” Meredith nods as she walks closer, “I was just coming to tell you that.  Fortunately, there appears to be some sort of force field holding back the wa-“ Meredith’s attention is caught by the view of the city outside the window. The submerged city is huge, with spiraling towers almost glowing from the aquamarine hue caused by the fractured sunlight from the surface, “-ter. Wow.  That is impressive isn’t it?”

Meredith stared for a little longer before shaking herself out of it, “Uh, Doctor Beckett has found something he thinks you should see.”

Meredith leads the group to the room she had previously found Carson in.  Carson stands behind a podium on the other side of the room.  In the center is a glowing figure, which upon further inspection, appears to be a lady.

“-in hope of spreading new life in a galaxy where there appeared to be none. Soon the new life grew and prospered,” The hologram, for that was the only explanation for this, says as the group walks further into the room.

“It’s a hologram,” Carson explains as he continues to watch it, captivated, “The recordin’ loops.  This is my second time watchin’ it.”

Sumner looks over the hologram in contemplation, “Have we missed anything?”

“No’ much,” Carson reassures.

“-exchange knowledge and friendship,” overhead a hologram map of the galaxy they were in appears, “In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form. Then, one day, our people set foot upon a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivaled our own. In our overconfidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon the defenseless human worlds like a great scourge,” the stars above begin to slowly turn red from left to right until all of them are converted, “until only Atlantis remained.  This city’s great shield was powerful enough to withstand their weapons, but we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kind, we submerged our great city into the ocean.  The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy and those of us who remained used it to return to that world, which was once home.  There, the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives and this city was left to slumber in the hope that our kind would one day return.”

The hologram stops talking and Carson steps away from the podium, deactivating it.  Meredith stares at where the hologram had been, “Huh.  So the story of Atlantis is true.  A great city that sank into the ocean.”

“It jus’ didn’ happen on Earth,” Carson agrees.

“The Greeks must’ve heard it from one of the surviving Ancients,” Meredith speculates.

As Sumner starts to talk about his issues with what they heard, Peter walks into the room and heads straight towards Meredith.  He leans in and starts to whisper in her ear, “Doctor McKay, we have a problem.  The energy consumption rate is eating through the power being used to keep the shield running. The shield has already collapsed to minimum sustainability.”

“-from the beginnin’,” Carson says as he steps up to the podium activating the hologram.

“Stop!” Meredith exclaims with wide eyes, “Turn it off.”

Carson steps away, the hologram deactivating as he does.  The room turns to look at Meredith in surprise.

“The power levels throughout the city are dropping like a stone,” Meredith explains as she starts to head out of the room.

“What does that mean?” Sumner stops her.

“It means that if we don’t stop everything we are doing right now, we’re dead,” Meredith leaves the room and heads for the control room.  As soon as she arrives she heads to one of the computers and starts going through the systems to find where the drain is coming from.

“Please tell me this is no’ my fault,” Carson pleads as he comes up to her.

Meredith rolls her eyes as she looks at him, “No.”

“Thank you,” Carson cheers to himself.

“From what we’ve been able to ascertain, the city is powered by three Zero Point Modules,” Meredith explains to Elizabeth and everyone else gathered in the control room, “Two are depleted, and the third is reaching entropy.” Meredith heads to a screen that is set up with a map of the city, “When it does, it’ll die too. And nothing will reverse that.”

“Just tell me the bottom line,” Sumner says.

Meredith rolls her eyes.  It should be obvious what will happen when the ONLY POWER SOURCE POWERING THE SHIELDS DIES. BUT WHATEVER MILITARY GUYS DON’T SEEM TO LIKE USING THEIR BRAINS FOR SIMPLE DEDUCTIONS. “The bottom line is that the force field holding back the ocean from entering the city has collapsed to its minimum sustainable levels,” Meredith starts to point at certain sections on the map, “Look, you can see here and here where the shield failed and the city flooded. That happened years ago. This part here, where we are, is likely more protected because of the Stargate.”

“What if it fails completely?” John asks.

God save her from smacking her husband, “It’s not a matter of if.  It’s a matter of when.”

As Meredith moves to start trying to syphon the energy in other parts of the city to the generator, she hears Elizabeth behind her, “Colonel Sumner, Order your security teams to stop searching the city immediately.”

“Security teams, fall back to the gate room.” Sumner orders.

“That’s not going to be good enough,” Meredith warns from her position behind the back console in the room.

“How much time do we have?” Elizabeth looks at Meredith in concern.

“Hours, days if we completely minimize power expenditure,” Meredith informs the room.

“What about our own generators?” Carson asks.

“We’re working on it,” Meredith replies, “But even with our most powerful Nadquadah generator, the equations keep coming up far short. So even if we get them put into place, they won’t be enough to keep the shield up.”

“So we need to find more ZPMs,” Elizabeth says.

“Well how do we do that if we can’t search the city?” Sumner questions heatedly.

“If there were more here, we’d have already detected them,” Meredith answers.

“Can we use the Stargate?” Sumner asks calmly.

Meredith looks at him, “There’s nowhere near enough power to wormhole back to Earth.”

“Maybe somewhere in this galaxy?” John says, cutting in as he looks to the two from where he is seated.

Meredith looks over at him, contemplating the power needed in her head, “That’s relatively easy.”

Meredith walks over to the DHD she had uncovered earlier, “Fortunately, some Ancient technology still uses good old fashioned buttons.  So, we’ve got access to the Stargate controls and a library of known gate addresses.”

“That not all,” Peter cuts in, “Look at this.”

With that he presses a button on the DHD, a whooshing sound is heard and a see through shield forms in the Stargate arch. WHICH WAS USING POWER THAT COULD BE USED FOR OTHER THINGS!!!!

“Just like the iris on the Earth gate,” Peter explains, AND LEAVES THE IRIS RUNNING.

“Using power,” Meredith reminds, “Using power. Using POWER”

Peter finally turns off the gate before looking at Meredith in apology.

“Well, at least we won’t have to deal with any uninvited guests,” Elizabeth says, lightening the conversation, “Colonel assemble a team. We need safe harbor or better still, another power source.”

Sumner touches his com unit, “Lieutenant Ford, gather security teams.”

Elizabeth looks at Meredith, then John, “Major, I’d like you to go along.”

John and Meredith look at each other for a moment before he kisses her forehead. Then, turning to Elizabeth, he responds with a crisp “Yes ma’am.”

John walks off as Elizabeth turns to Meredith and Peter, “All right. Pick an address and start dialing.”

Meredith nods and looks at the DHD.  She pick one of the triangle buttons in the top right section and pushes down.  The button lights up and the inside of the gate’s arc starts turning before one of the chevrons on the outside lights up, “Chevron one, encoded.”

“Mare,” Elizabeth says, ruining Meredith’s fun.

Meredith turns to her pleadingly but turns away, disgruntled, when Elizabeth doesn’t give in, “Fine.”

Meredith continues dialing the sequence until all but one of the chevrons are encoded. 

Peter coms out, “Ready MALP 4 for off world recon.”

Meredith presses the button for the last chevron and hold her breath in hope that it works. A second passes before the Stargate fills up and explodes outward a few feet before calming back down.  Peter runs out of the control down to towards the gate. Meredith and Elizabeth move towards the balcony overlooking the Gate room and look down at where the group was preparing to enter the gate.  The group puts on night vision goggles before proceeding through the gate entrance. John turns right before he’s about to enter and looks up at the balcony.  He waves at Meredith, who waves back, before walking through the event horizon.  As the last of the group enters the Stargate, Meredith turns around to prepare the gate to close.  She waits a few seconds after the last man walks through before shutting down the gate.

Elizabeth walks up to her, “I know that must have been hard.”

“It wasn’t as hard as it would have been if he had never been black ops, but it’s still difficult knowing he’s going off to an alien planet that we don’t know anything about,”  Meredith explains, looking out at the gate. “I don’t think it ever gets easier either.”

“No. It probably doesn’t,” Elizabeth touches Meredith’s shoulder before walking off.

“You know, he’s probably going to be going on a lot of off world missions,” Peter remarks while looking though the Atlantis power systems.

“Yes, I do, but that has noth-“ Meredith started to retort before the Gate’s activation cuts her off.

She and Peter rush to the DHD as Elizabeth comes out of the room she has claimed as her office.

“It’s Parker’s IDC. He says that they’ve made contact with the indigenous people, and are going to their settlement,” Peter declares.

“Alright, thank them and tell them to keep us informed.” Elizabeth says as she looks at the Gate.

Meredith goes back to her task and sees that a large amount of powers is being diverted to a room on the east side of the city. She calls peter over and they decided to lower the power diverted by 75%, before being distracted by another issue.

~*~*~*~*~

Hours go by before Meredith and Peter go to update Elizabeth on the power situation.

“Tell me some good news, Mare,” Elizabeth demands as Meredith and Peter enter the office.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Meredith replies back, looking Elizabeth in the eye.

“The shield has held back the ocean for centuries,” Elizabeth says, like it would make any difference to their situation.

“Actually, it’s probably more like millenniums,” Meredith corrects, “but that isn’t important. What is, is that while, yes it did last for a long time, that was before we arrived.  It could have kept going for a while longer, but now? It’s nothing more than a thin shell between the buildings and the water.”

“We stopped exploring,” Elizabeth exclaims.

“The damage is already done.  The minute we walked through that gate we doomed ourselves,” Meredith explains, “Another section of the city on the far side flooded about an hour ago.”

“Even occupying this room drains power,” Peter adds.

“We need to evacuate as soon as Colonel Sumner reports back that it’s safe,” Meredith ends.

Elizabeth looks at the both of them in disbelief, “You mean abandon the city?”

As if acting as an omen the city starts to shake and rumble. Another section, closer this time, falling to ocean.

“The sooner we leave, the longer that shield holds,” Meredith says to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looks at her before turning around shaking her head in disbelief.  Meredith walks up to her and places a hand on her shoulder, “You know that leaving is the best option. If we leave we still have the opportunity to find a Zed-PM.  And once we find one, we can come back and put it in to power the shield.”

Elizabeth looks over her shoulder at Meredith, “I know.”

Meredith nods and she and Peter leave the office with Elizabeth overlooking the Gate room.

~*~*~*~*~

A little while later Elizabeth comes to the control room to bother Meredith for new information.  Information that Meredith cannot change.  Because Meredith is not a magician. Meredith cannot MAGICALLY CHANGE THINGS THAT HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED.

So when Elizabeth comes into the control room and asks “How are we doing?” Meredith can only raise her hands in a ‘sorry, nothing’ gesture.

“If we can just buy ourselves another day,” Elizabeth is pushing, “Maybe-“

“The city is sacrificing parts of itself to maintain these main areas,” Meredith cuts her off, turning around to pack up some of the equipment lying around, “But catastrophic failure is inevitable.”

Elizabeth shakes her head as she turns away from Meredith, “Never in my wildest dreams did I hope to find the Lost City of the Ancients so completely untouched, so pristine.  And we have no other choice but to walk away from this?”

“In order to save it,” Meredith consoles.

“Save it for whom?” Elizabeth cries looking at Meredith, “We don’t have enough power to send a message. According to Earth, we’ll just be missing and presumed lost.”

“We’ll find a power source somewhere out there in Pegasus.”

“We have yet to hear from Colonel Sumner! We’ve got no idea what’s out there!” Elizabeth reminds her.

“I know,” Meredith confirms, “But we can’t wait,” she walks closer to Elizabeth, “It’s time to go. Now.”

Elizabeth looks at Meredith in distain before turning around and walking away.  She walks onto the balcony before calling into her radio, “Attention, all personnel. This is Weir.”

The city starts to shake again as Meredith continues working, preparing for the evacuation.

“Stand by for immediate evacuation!” Elizabeth turns to look at Meredith, “Dial the Gate!”

Meredith begins the dialing sequence but before she has the chance to finish, the Stargate turns itself on.

“We’ve got an incoming wormhole!” Meredith calls out.

“I’m reading Lieutenant Ford’s Identification Code,” Peter says from behind her.

“Let them in!” Elizabeth calls.

Meredith powers down the iris and people start to come through. Many of them are clothed in what appear to be handmade garments. John and a few other soldier seems to be all that remains of the group that had gone.

“Major Sheppard!” Elizabeth yells as she rushes to the group, “Major Sheppard, who are all these people?”

Meredith became distracted by the steadily falling power levels. The words ‘Shield Failure Imminent’ appears on her screen, “The shield’s collapsing!”

The city shakes worse than it had been sending quite a few people to the floor.  Peter heads to the DHD, “I’m dialing an address!”

Elizabeth calls out, “No! Wait!”

Peter stops after pressing the second button.  Meredith looks over to him, “She’s right.”

“We’re moving,” is heard from John on the staircase.

The light in the room slowly changes from artificial to natural sunlight as the city breaks the surface of the water.  Water sloughs off the windows as the shaking reduces.  As it comes to a stop, Meredith starts walking towards the window at the top of the stairs and stands next to John.  Out the window, the city of Atlantis bobs on the surface of the water.  Water expanding far beyond eye sight.

Water trickles down the window as Lt. Ford says, “We’re on the surface.”

“I was hoping for another day,” Elizabeth jokes, “Looks like we just got a whole lot more than that.  Let’s not waste it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Meredith whispers from behind John.  Who, upon hearing her, turns around and swoops her up into a hug.

“I missed you,” He whispers into her hair. He kisses the side of her head before pulling away and kissing her on the lips.

“I missed you too,” she whispers back after breaking the kiss, “But we need to get back to work.”

He kisses her one last time before pulling away and leading her back to the control room.  Meredith heads to a computer to see how the city is fairing and John leans against one of the consoles.  Elizabeth goes to stand next to him as they wait for Meredith to finish her assessment.

“Okay,” Meredith starts as she walks over, “The last Zero Point Module is depleted, but limited power has returned now that we’re not holding back the ocean.  Life-support systems are working, but the atmosphere is breathable, notwithstanding the inevitable allergens.”

“So now can our naquadah generators supply enough power to the shield for defensive purposes?” Elizabeth asks.

“Not even close,” Meredith denies, coming to a stop in front of John and Elizabeth.

“On the surface, without a shield. We’re target practice,” John says crossing his arms.

“Yes, I’m acutely aware of that, but there is nothing we can do about it,” Meredith states.

“Well, can you at least determine where the Wraith took Colonel Sumner and the others?” John walks closer to her.

“Even with the six symbols Lieutenant Ford provided there are still hundreds of permutations-“ Meredith begins.

“720.” John interrupts.

“Hmm,” Meredith hums, “I love it when you talk math to me.”

John smirks at his wife, “Take away the coordinates you can’t get a lock on, and that’s your one. When you find it, send a MALP.”

“I’ll get you back for that,” Meredith whispers to him before stepping back.

Before John could say anything back Elizabeth calls out, “Major? A word.” 

Meredith turns to begin going through the permutations.  She hears a whoosh and turns to see what they had all thought was a window open up to a balcony. She watches as John and Elizabeth walk out before continuing on. 

~*~*~*~*~

After 720 different permutations, only one actually works.  The seven hundred twentieth. Of course.

“Finally,” Meredith grins, “Peter prepare the MALP.”

Meredith picks up her radio, “Doctor Weir we’ve got a match.”

Peter comes up to Meredith at the same time John and Elizabeth arrive in the control room.  Peter sends out the MALP and all four look to the screen.

“We are receiving visual telemetry,” Peter informs them.  The screen is pitch black, with no indication of anything.

“We’re getting no atmospheric readings at all,” Meredith says.

A slightly illuminated object floats by the screen. John points it out, “Woah, what was that?”

“Rotate the camera,” Peter says, staring at the screen.

The screen doesn’t change for a few seconds, until a bright orb crosses the screen.  It leaves the screen for a few seconds and rings like those on Saturn appear.  The screen shows more of the rings and then Stargate appears, floating in front of a planet.

“Well,” Meredith sighs, pushing away from the console, “There goes _that_ MALP.”

“It’s in space,” John states, amazed.

“It’s in high orbit, around a planet, on the far side of the Galaxy,” Meredith informs the room.

 “Are you sure this is the right address?” Elizabeth asks.

“It’s the only one that we could get a lock on,” Meredith confirms.

“Very well,” Elizabeth gets up from where she had been seated and starts to head to her office. The gate shutting down as she passes John, “Sorry.”

Meredith thinks for a few seconds before remembering a couple of the science teams had mentioned a ship bay. Smiling she stood up from where she had been leaning on the console, “Hey Major, come with me.”

Meredith walks towards the door, confident that her husband will follow her.  A few steps away from the control room she hears John behind her, “Major, huh?”

“Well, it is your rank, isn’t it?” Meredith teases as she weaves her way up to the ship bay.

“Yeah,” John agrees coming up beside her, “But you only use that on special occasions.”

Meredith smirks as they react the doors to the bay, “Trust me I think you’ll think that this is a special occasion.”

“I think every occasion that we get down and dirty is a-“ John is cut off as Meredith opens the bay’s door and the view of dozens of boxy, gray spaceships is unobscured, “-good occasion.  Damn.”

“I knew you’d like it,” Meredith grins up at him as he stares (drools) at the ships.

“Sweetheart, you know me so well that sometimes it scares me,” John replies as he walks fully into the bay and heads towards one of the ships.

“Well it _is_ only fair,” Meredith follows, “you know me better than I do sometimes.”

Meredith steps up beside John when he stops in front of one of the ships.  She gets the back hatch to open and they both walk in.  There are four seats on both sides of the back compartment.  A wall and door separates it from the front compartment.  In the front compartment, there are four individual seats. The pilot’s chair is in front of the console, there are buttons around with Ancient lettering, next to it is the co-pilot’s seat with the same equipment, and in between them is a mobile DHD connected to the console.  Behind both chairs are the last two individual seats.

John walks ahead of Meredith as they investigate the ship. He touches part of the console, and the ship lights up.  John looks around in awe.

Meredith comes up behind him, “Do you think you can fly this?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” John grins devilishly and sits down in the pilot seat.  John gets it to float and move forward a few feet before setting it back down, “I think I’ve got it.”

“Okay,” Meredith sighs, walking to the back of the craft, “I guess I’ll go get Elizabeth.”

John gets up, “Mare,” Meredith stops halfway to the hatch door, “You know I have to do this.  I have to go and rescue the soldiers and the Athosians that were captured.”

“I know,” she says, still staring at the back of the ship, “that doesn’t mean I won’t worry.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” John comes up behind her.

He’s about to wrap his arms around her when she whips around, “I will always worry about you John Sheppard.  When you’re deployed. When you’re flying. When you’re driving. Hell even when you’ve just left my sight.  I love you.  I can’t help it.”

John wraps her up in his arms and holds her tight, “I will always come back to you. Come hell or high water I will always return to you.  No matter what I do, no matter where I go, I will always come back.  Because I love you too.”

Meredith buries her head into his shoulder, hiding the tears that well up in her eyes, and the grin brought on by his cheesy words.  After a few minutes she pulls away, wiping her eyes as she does, “You are so cheesy.”

“Like a pizza,” He agrees, “Now go and get Weir so we can get this show on the road.”

She smiles as she turns away. She opens the back door and walks out, heading off the find Elizabeth.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Meredith eventually finds her leaving the set up medical ward.  And has her follow back to the ship bay.  The ship bay that had a thrumming sound emanating from it.  The ship bay that John had disappeared from.  That asshole.

“What is that sound?” Elizabeth asks.

“I don’t know!” Meredith exclaims, irritated that her husband disappeared on her, “He was just here.  John!”

In front of them the air begins to waver, like ripples on the surface of a still pond. The ship John had been in begins to form, hovering in the air.  It only takes seconds until the ship is fully visible.  Through the windshield John waves at them, “You said you wanted technical advantage,” is heard through the bay.

Meredith waves back in stunned silence. (THE SHIPS CAN TURN INVISIBLE!!! EEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!)

“Alright,” Elizabeth announces, smiling in amusement at the sound Meredith made, “So you can fly that thing.  It doesn’t mean you can pull off a rescue mission.”

“Doctor,” John smirks, “That’s why you brought me here.”

“Fine,” Elizabeth relents, “You can go.”

“Yes!”

“But first you need to fix your wife,” Elizabeth finished, cutting off John’s cheers.

“What?” John questions before actually getting a look at his wife.  Meredith was staring at the ship with starry eyes, probably imagining all the technological information she could gather from it. John turns his head to look at Elizabeth before saying, “Just pinch her side.  She fell a little too far into science wonderland.”

Elizabeth gives him a strange look before pinching Meredith’s right arm.

“Ow!” Meredith flinches before rubbing her arm, “that hurt.” She glances to her right, seeing Elizabeth arch her eyebrow at her, “I’m going to go… go prepare the gate for… stuff.”

Meredith, with a flush being to rise on her cheeks, turns around and rushes out of the bay.  Damn her incessant obsession with new technology.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Meredith is standing behind the back console in the control room, staring at the crystal keys attached to it and wondering what they could be used for, when Elizabeth walks in from the stairs coming down from the upper floor. “Ready?”

“I have no idea,” Meredith laments, “This technology is so far beyond us!  I mean, we haven’t got a clue what we’re dealing with.  For all I know, we could…”

Meredith’s speech dies off as Elizabeth deadpans at her. Meredith sighs at the injustice of it all, “Yeah. Ready.”

John’s voice sounds through the radio, “Flight, this is… Puddle Jumper. We’re go to launch.”

Meredith raises her eyebrow. She thought Ford had named them Gateships, “This is Flight. I thought we were going with Gateship?”

“Negative flight,” came back.

“Stand by,” Meredith turns to Elizabeth, “It’s a ship that goes through the gate.  It was…” Meredith stops at Elizabeth’s impatient expression, “Never mind,“ Meredith turns back to the radio, “Puddle Jumper you are clear to launch.”

The Stargate activates and the ceiling to the Gate room opens. Meredith and Elizabeth move to stand on the balcony to watch the proceeding.  A jumper lowers until it is level with the Gate. It hovers there for a few seconds and then rushes in, disappearing from view.  A couple of second later the Gate shuts off.

Meredith stares at the gate, gnawing on her lower lip before whispering, “Good luck, and be safe John.”

Meredith glances over at Elizabeth and then turns around to find something to keep her mind off of the mission.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Meredith heads back to the control room after an hour in excitement.  All the different reports are coming in from the different systems in the city, as well as the search teams.  So much information, so little time.

Entering the control room, Meredith spots Elizabeth gazing upon the Stargate.  Meredith approaches her, “Doctor Weir!  We’re getting reports from all over the city. There’s some pretty interesting stuff.  We’ve only been able to provide power to certain sections of the city, but even then, the things that are coming up are just…”

Meredith trails off, seeing that Elizabeth isn’t really paying attention to what she’s saying.

Elizabeth still staring at the gate says, “I should have never let them go.”

Meredith touches Elizabeth’s shoulder, “For what it’s worth, even if you’d said no, John would have still found a way to do it.  It is the right thing to do.  And if anyone can save them and get back, it’s John.  You just have to give them time.”

Meredith turns away and walks over to one of the computers to continue her information gathering.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A moderate amount of time goes by before the Stargate activates. Peter, from his seat in front of the DHD, yells out, “Off world activation!”

Elizabeth runs out of her office, “Raise the shield!”

Peter presses the button to activate the iris. It closes up the wormhole, prepared to stop the enemy if they try to come through.

Elizabeth stares at the gate, “Do we have an Identification code?”

Meredith shakes her head still staring at the laptop she rushed to near the DHD when the gate activated, “No, nothing yet.”

Almost 30 seconds pass before there’s a change on the laptop screen, “I’m reading Lieutenant Ford’s IDC!”

“Let them in!” Elizabeth orders.

Peter lowers the shield only for a few of what looked like energy blasts to come through.  The personnel in the gate room dodge to the side and escape damage.

Elizabeth calls out, “Give them a few more seconds!”

A few stressful seconds later, the Puddle Jumper comes rushing through the gate, only to come to a quick stop.  Elizabeth turns to Peter, “REACTIVATE THE SHIELD.”

Peter nods and turns the iris back on, only for three distinct thuds and flares of light to come from the gate.  Within the next second the gate shuts down.

Meredith sighs with relief as she makes her way to stand beside Elizabeth at the door, smiling when she sees John in the pilot’s seat.  As the Jumper starts to slowly rise up to the ship bay, Meredith turns around and starts running there too.  She opens the door as John opens the Jumpers back and starts to walk over.  Everyone on the ship begins to depart and she notices John has his back turned.  So she sneaks up and grabs him from behind.

John jumps a little before turning around and hugging her, “Hello sweetheart.”

“Hello gorgeous.”

“Awe,” John turns to the person he had been talking to (oops), “did you hear that? She thinks I’m gorgeous.”

The woman, the damn flirt, looks amused at the display, “Yes Major, I did hear her say that.”

John just smiles and turns Meredith around, so that her back was to his front with his arms wrapped around her lower ribs, and places his chin on her head, “Yeah isn’t she great?”

Meredith rolls her eyes, “Well, since it seems that this one won’t lead the introduction, it is left to us,” Meredith extends her right hand, “I’m Doctor Meredith McKay, this one’s wife.”

“And I am Telya Emmagan, Daughter of Tagan and Torren Emmagan.” The woman asks, “If you are married why do you not share your name?”

“Oh we do,” John says.

“I just didn’t want to go through the hassle of paperwork and paying a bunch of fees to change the name on my degrees,” Meredith explains, “It’s just easier to go by my maiden name in professional settings.”

“Ah,” Teyla smiles and nods.

“Anyway,” Meredith pulls away to look at John, “There’s a party planned for tonight.”

“They planned a party?” John asked.

 “Yeah,” Meredith grins, “Apparently you’re some kinda hero or something. But truthfully, the personnel planned what basically amount to a feast in enthusiasm of being alive, making it here to Atlantis, and the savior of those that were captured.  Anyway, I need to talk to some of my people about some of the information we’ve received from various parts of the city,” Meredith pulls his face to hers and pecks him on the lips, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Meredith pulls completely away and walks out of the bay searching for the Polish guy whose name she can never remember.  Kazimierz? No.  Maybe it started with an M? No… Hmmm.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The party had been, for the most part, interesting.  The Athosians were interesting to talk to, for a hunter-gather society.  She got to watch Carson strike out with a girl, which while sad was funny.  And she got to see her husband, her anti-social, doesn’t know how to make friends, husband make a new friend.  Unfortunately she had to leave early to see to a few things for the science department.

It is several hours after sunset before Meredith gets to the room John picked out for the two of them.  The door is a dark grey just like most of the ones she’s already passed. Next to it, like all doors here in Atlantis, is a panel containing three crystals. She swipes her hand over top crystal, and winces as the door swishes open.  Slowly moving toward the bed, she sees it’s smaller than what they normally share, but knows that it’s bigger than the ones others are sleeping on, seeing as her husband took another bed from an unused room and rearranged them to create a bigger bed for them to share.

Meredith slowly takes off her boots and pants and slides into bed so that she is facing John.  She takes in his features from what little is visible from the moons’ glow. And slowly touches his cheek, whispering, “I know you’re awake.”

John cracks an eye open and whispers back, “How did you know?”

“You may have trained yourself out of snoring loudly, but you still do a little,” Meredith admits, “You can’t really hear it unless you know it’s there.”

“Nice to know,” John slides his right arm over her waist and pulls her closer to him.

“I’m sorry about Sumner,” Meredith whispers, looking at his chest.

“I am too,” John hugs her to him like he’s afraid she’ll disappear.

“If it make you feel better, if you could have saved him from what happened, you would have,” Meredith states, absolutely sure of this.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” John admits pushing his face into her hair.

“Just know, I’m here if you need me.”

John waits until he feels the tension in her body relax as she falls asleep, “I know. That’s one of the reasons why I love you so much.”


	3. The Glow Cloud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mare should really start paying attention to the fine print.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Only the things you don't know are mine.

Today is the day.  The day Meredith is finally going to get the ATA gene.  (Finally, no stupid marines, no more getting distracted by her husband. NO MORE!)  Because Carson finally feels ready to up the testing to human trials.  Which, yeah okay, doesn’t sound the _greatest_ , but having no marines in her space makes up for it.  She even has a device she plans on testing once she gains the gene.  She found it in one of the labs the expedition discovered over three days after settling in Atlantis. It’s a personalized shield that will completely cover and protect whomever puts it on.  The best part is that it’s a mentally activated device, so when she feels the need to turn it off she should be able to deactivate it. _So cool_!

“Are you sure you want to do this, Mare?” John interrupts her thought process.

Mare turns to look at her husband.  He’s lying on their bed with his hands resting behind his head. “Yeah, I am.  I’m tired of having to wait for someone else to operate the Ancient devices we come across.  Also, there aren’t enough gene carriers in the Science department as there is, so if the Gene therapy works more of them can go through the procedure.”

John gets up and walks over to where she’s finishing with her hair.  They lock eyes as he wraps his arms around her waist, “As long as you’re sure. But you know,” John smirks mischievously, “I never mind being your guinea pig.”

Mare’s mouth drops open, “John!”

John smiles innocently before kissing the right side of her neck.  Mare shrugs away from his mouth as she breaks free from his arms, “Oh no! You are not going to drag me back into your bed!”

John licks his lips and starts corralling her toward the bed, “I think you’ll find, that bed is _ours_ sweetheart.”

Mare chuckles as she ducks around him and heads to the door, “That may be true on any other day, but when you try to make me late, it’s your bed, darling!”

Mare hears John groan in defeat as she walks out the door.  She turns and blows him a kiss before it closes between them and she heads off to Medical.

It takes her about twenty minutes, two staircases, and one wrong turn (give her a break she’s only had like twelve actual hours of the three days they’ve been in Atlantis to figure out where everything is and even then, she hasn’t been to the Medical bay) to arrive at Medical.  She walks through the infirmary part, heading straight to the lab area.

“Ah, there ya are Mare, I was beginnin’ ta think tha’ I’d need ta send out a search party for ya,” Carson says when he sees her walk through the archway, “I’m no’ quite ready yet, but it’ll no’ take but a few minutes.”

Meredith nods as she looks around the area before her eyes catch on a glass cage filled with white mice. She walks over and crouches down to be eye level with the mice, “Are these the mice that were tested before?”

Carson glances over as he fills a syringe, “Aye, cute lil buggers, huh?”

“Depends on your definition of cute, but sure, I guess,” Mare stands up and faces Carson, “I think I would have preferred looking at a cat.  Now cats, cats are cute.  I wish I didn’t have to leave mine on earth.  Poor Al.  I bet John’s happy about that at least.  Al and John hate each other. It’s hilarious.”

Carson shakes his head before patting the bed next to him, “Sit down, I’m ready.”

Meredith walks over and hops on the bed.  She holds out her left arm, bared and ready to go due to her t-shirt.  Carson raises his eyebrow and, grabbing her right arm, prepares her for the gene therapy, “I’m surprised ya were so eager ta volunteer for this, Mare.”

“Are you kidding?” Meredith looks at Carson in disbelief, “A chance to not have to deal with asking marines to help out is a dream come true!  With this I won’t have to repeat everything in laymen's terms!”

“Tha’ sounds abou’ right,” Carson laughs, as he wraps a rubbery tie cloth thing around her arm (she remembers it being used the one time she gave blood), “So do ya have any questions concernin’ the process? I mean, ya are a scientist.”

“Carson, you know I think medical sciences are a more advanced form of voodoo,” Mare states as she watches him work, “But I trust you.  As much as I can trust a voodoo practitioner.”

Carson gives her a look, which Mare grins at, before taping her arm and wiping it down, “Aye, but ya are the first human trial.”

Meredith’s eyes widen, “I, uh, I thought you’d tested it at least once before.”

“On animals, yes, but, well, withou’ proper FDA approval, it was virtually impossible ta do a human trial on Earth.  Let’s jus’ say it’s uh, legal, here in the Pegasus Galaxy.”

Meredith stares at Carson, who’s holding the filled syringe, “Is it safe?”

“As far as experimental gene therapy goes,” Carson sees Mare’s unease, “I am manipulating your DNA. Here we go.”

As Carson prepares to inject her, Meredith pulls her arm back, “Maybe you should tell me more.”

Carson exhales deeply out of his nose, “We believe A.T.A. is caused by a single gene that's always on, instructin’ various cells in the body ta produce a series of proteins an’ enzymes tha’ interact with the skin, the nervous system, an’ the brain. In this case, we're usin’ a mouse retrovirus ta deliver the missin’ gene ta your cells.”

“Are there any side-“ Carson inject Meredith, “effects. Ow!”

“Dry mouth, headache, the irresistible urge ta run on a small wheel,” he replies like nothing happened, cleaning and bandaging the injection spot.

“Very funny,” Meredith glares, “About how long do you think it’ll take for the gene to kick in?”

“It could take some time, why?” Carson queries as he picks up the area.

Mare pulls out the personal shield she found, “I wanna test this.”

“Wha’ is it?”

“I found it in one of the research labs yesterday,” Meredith rolls it around in her hand, “It’s supposedly a personal shield.  Sounds interesting right?”

“You know how ta use it?”

“It had pretty simple instructions.”

“Okay, lass.  Have fun.”

Meredith leaps off the bed.  She glances over her shoulder as she walks out, “Don’t worry I will!”

\----------SGA------------SGA-----------

It takes her a while, but Meredith finally finds her husband working on some paperwork in one of the cleared rooms near the control room.  He’s not facing her, so she sneaks up and drapes herself over his back.  She hears him chuckle before she finds herself being kissed.

“Hello, beautiful,” he grins as they separate, “I see you’re done being Carson’s lab rat.”

“Hello to you too, gorgeous,” she maneuvers herself into his lap, “and yes, I am.  I just need to test and see if it worked,” Meredith lifts up the personal shield, “Wanna help?”

“Isn’t that the shield you told me about,” John questions.

“Mhmm,” Meredith tilts her head to make eye contact, “I want you to shoot me when I put it on if it activates.”

John jerks back a little, “Shoot you? Hell no.”

Mare narrows her eyes, “Uh, uh.  I know that look Mare, the answers no.”

“But I don’t trust anyone else,” Meredith pleads, “Plus, we’d only do it if the shield activates.  And it’d be in a non-lethal area.”

“Yeah, no.” John states, unmoved by her pleas.

“What about using a taser instead?” Meredith compromises.

John contemplates the alternative as he gazes at his wife. “Fine,” he relents, only because he knows she would find someone else who would, “BUT, only if it activates.”

Mare flings her arms around him, “Thank you!”

John shakes his head as he hugs her tight, “Just know I really don’t like this.”

Meredith listens to his heartbeat for a few seconds more before getting up, “I know, but science!”

John rolls his eyes.  Mare smiles at him before looking down at the device in her hand. John gets up and walks over to her, staring at the device as well.  It’s oblong and tiny, only about ten centimeters end to end, and grey. One side is raised up, while the other is flat.  John looks dubiously at the thing. Meredith takes a deep breath and raises it to her chest.  She presses the flat end against the area above her right breast.  A few seconds go by before the device starts to glow green and a transparent bubble expands outward until Meredith is completely covered.  John raises his hand to touch her, but is stopped an instant before making contact.

Mare is thrilled.  The gene therapy worked!  IT WORKED!  She looks at her husband, “You ready?”

John inhales sharply before nodding.  He walks a few paces away from her before removing his taser and pointing it at his wife, “Are you ready?”

Meredith nods solemnly.  John sucks in a breath and exhales.  When he pulls the trigger, the two metal clips inside the taser fling out and head for Meredith. Right as it looks like the shield wouldn’t work, the clips bounce off the bubble that incases Mare, causing a ripple of green to go around it.

“Did you see that!” Mare laughs, looking down at herself.

John walks up after retracting the taser. He smirks at her enthusiasm, “It looks like you’re invulnerable right now.”

Meredith starts walking out of the room, “Now I want you to push me off one of the balconies.”

“What?” John exclaims as he follows her.

Mare stops at one of the balconies overlooking the Gate room, “I want you to push me off.”

“Okay, why exactly do you want me to do that?” John inquires, because this is a weird ass response to invulnerability.

Meredith takes a deep breath in and out, “I want to determine how protective the shield is.  By falling I can determine if it is affected by impacts or not.  Plus, this is a relatively low balcony, so the chance of injury is fairly low.”

John stares at her in disbelief, “You know what, I’m just going to do it. Because if I don’t you’ll probably just start jumping off things.”

Meredith looks at him innocently, “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Of course you don’t,” John mumbles as Meredith arranges herself at the balcony railing.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she declares, facing him with her back against the railing. John shakes his head and places his hands onto the front of her shoulders.  He pushes her hard enough for her to go over the railing and down to ground below.

“Oh, my god!” Dr. Weir exclaims from the balcony off the control room, where she is standing with Peter, “Major Sheppard, no matter how mad you get-“

Meredith jumps up from her landing place, unharmed and grinning madly, “I’m fine!”

Elizabeth, Peter, and John rush down the stairs, “Carson’s gene therapy worked!  I was able to activate this,” Meredith gestures to the shield on her chest, “It’s a personal shield! It acts as a, um, protective skin, and it must have inertial dampening properties. I didn’t even feel a thing.  Watch this.”

Meredith looks to Peter, “Hit me,” Peter looks at her for a second before taking a swing at her face.  Before his hand could touch her, the shield reacted. Much like it did with the taser, a wave of green emanated from the area Peter hit and extended over the bubble until it dissipated.  Athosian children in the room giggle at Peter as he groans in pain. Meredith tilts her head, “You didn’t even hesitate. Got some pent up anger?”

Elizabeth looks on in disbelief, “I’m still trying to understand how you thought it was a good idea to test this device by having your husband toss you off a balcony.”

Meredith grins at her, “That wasn’t the first thing we tried.”

“She had me taser her,” John states.  Upon Weir's look of shock, he elaborates, “If I didn’t do it she would have found someone else to do it.”

“I’m invulnerable!” Mare exclaims, because how cool is this!

“Aren’t you the one who’s always spouting off about how proper and careful scientific procedure must be adhered to?” Elizabeth asks in amusement.

“Yes, and I’ve read all there is about the device.  It’s mentally controlled so whenever I want it off, I can take it off,” Meredith explains, “See look.”

Meredith reaches up to remove the shield, but her hand is blocked by the shield. Meredith removes her hand before trying again.  The same outcome occurs, “Oh no.”

John reaches out for the device and is stopped as well. He sees the three others looking at him, “Just checking.”

“Dr. McKay, I thought you said you could take it off whenever,” Dr. Weir says slowly.

Meredith glances up from the device, “I should be able to.  That’s what the database said, ‘Upon desire of removal, the device is removed by the wearer.’ Then there was information about recharging and-“ Meredith pauses.  Her eyes go big as she remembers the final part of the entry, “God fucking damn it!”

“What?” John asks, concerned.

Meredith inhales deeply, annoyed with herself. “’If, however, the wearer feels unsafe, consciously or subconsciously, the device will remain on until safety is met.’  For whatever reason I subconsciously feel unsafe right now, and the damn thing won’t come off until I feel safe.”

“And you didn’t think that was an important message?” Elizabeth asks pointedly.

“Well, how am I supposed to know that this place subconsciously freaks me out or that it would affect my ability to take this thing off?” Meredith exclaims.

“Well, we’re just going to have to deal with this later. We have a meeting to go to,” Weir declares.

“I’ll take Peter to get his hand checked out and meet you guys there,” Meredith grumbles, “I need to show Carson the gene therapy worked anyway.”

John goes to kiss her goodbye but is blocked by the shield.  Meredith groans, annoyed, “This is going to get really old, really fast.  Come on Peter.”

\----------SGA-----------SGA----------

Peter sits on one of the Medbeds as Carson wraps his wrist. Both are talking about the shield and what they think would be _great_ superhero names for Meredith.  Mare stands off to the side, near a table filled with coffee, pissed that they think her predicament is so hilarious.

“I’m thinking ‘Mrs. Invincible,’” Peter waves his uninjured hand as if imagining the arc of the name.

“’Captain Untouchable,’” Carson smirks in amusement, finishing the wrapping.

“Oooh! That’s good!” Peter points at Carson in agreement.  They both laugh as Carson makes sure the bandage in sturdy.

“Are you guys done?” Meredith asks, miffed.

“I’ve been workin’ on this gene therapy fo’ months,” Carson turns to Mare, “Forgive me for wantin’ ta celebrate the fact tha’ it worked on the first human trial.”

Meredith rolls her eyes, and sarcastically replies, “Oh, yay! Let’s all have a toast!”

Carson smirks and turns back to Peter.  He resumes inspecting his wrapping before looking up and locking eyes with Peter.  Both look at each other with wide eyes before staring at Meredith.

“Um… Just a thought,” Peter peers at her, “but have you tried eating or drinking since you put that thing on?”

Meredith gawks at them for a few seconds, processing the question. Her eyes grow wide. She whips around to the coffee and pours some into a mug.  She turns back around and looks at the two across from her.  Gulping, she looks down at the mug for five seconds before taking a deep breath and raising the mug to her lips.  She tips the mug so the coffee pours out toward her mouth, where it hits the shield and falls down to her feet, lighting up the shield as it goes.

 Meredith shuts her eyes and ducks her head, dropping the cup in despair, “Great. Just great.”

“This may be more serious than I suspected,” Carson says.

“Thank you. I hadn’t realized!” Meredith exclaims, “I haven’t eaten in a while.  I’ll probably have a hypoglycemic attack in a few hours!”

“Well maybe when that occurs the shield will turn off,” Peter suggests. Meredith groans and drops her head to her hand and starts murmuring to herself. He turns to look at Carson, “Is there any chance the gene therapy isn’t permanent?”

“It’s possible,” Both turn to look at Mare.

“Never again,” Mare groans.

“Um… Don’t you need to head to the meeting McKay?” Peter asks.

“Shit!” Meredith rushes out of the room.

\---------SGA----------SGA---------

Meredith rushed to the conference room, which is off the gate room.  She enters the room, filled with senior members of the expedition, as Elizabeth is speaking to Teyla, “As we value all the Athosians. For now, there should be more than enough living space for everyone within the designated area.”

“We have always lived in the shadow of the Wraith,” Teyla states as she stands proudly, “but my people have never been in a place like this.  They are afraid. Some believe the ghosts of the Ancestors remain.”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Elizabeth replies, “but- but still, we’re going to need a bit more time in order to explore the city.”

“We’re very cautious intergalactic explorers,” John interjects.

“And,” Elizabeth continues, “we don’t want anyone else getting hurt the way Halling did.  I mean, everyone needs to understand they are not to touch anything unfamiliar unless it’s been cleared first.”

“Yeah, don’t follow my example.” Everyone in the room turned to Meredith as she spoke, “Oh and, uh, by the way, if I faint in the next day or so, grab the device if it powers off and take me to Medical.”

Lieutenant Aiden Ford looked at her from his seat at the table, “Uh, why?”

“Because I’m probably going to have a hypoglycemic attack from lack of blood sugar because I won’t have eaten in over 18 hours,” Meredith stares him down.

“Oh.”

\----------SGA-----------SGA----------

A few hours later the senior staff members of the expedition stand around Peter as he explains the self-destruct system they’ve put in place.

“The self-destruct system requires two separate codes,” Peter types in some of a code onto the simulation, “Now, each code is unique, and everyone here is required to memorize their code.”

Elizabeth looks at those gathered, “As far as we know, this is the only Stargate in the Pegasus Galaxy capable of dialing Earth.  Which would make it the last line of defense against the Wraith.  If they’re going to attack, which we must consider a very real threat, we simply cannot let them gain control of this complex.”

“If both codes are entered, the naquadah generator will overload,” Peter explains, “It will only take thirty seconds.”

“You sure it will do enough damage?” Ford questions.

“Ever seen a twenty-kiloton nuclear explosion?” Meredith replies.

John, still staring at the computer screen, pipes up: “I have.”

The room goes silent as everyone turns to stare at him in astonishment, “Not up close.  Look, I think we should tell Teyla what’s going on here.”

“At this moment, we don’t know if it was one of the Athosians that alerted the Wraith to us being on their planet.” Elizabeth says.

“I trust Teyla,” John scoffs.

Weir crosses her arms, “So do I, but Teyla trusts her people. If we tell her, she’ll want to tell them, and I need more time to get to know them.”

With that, the group breaks up to go and do other things.  Meredith is about to head to her makeshift lab/office when John grabs her around her shield covered arm.

“That is still really weird,” John watches the green fade away from her arm.

“I really miss physical contact,” Meredith says looking at his hand.

John wraps his arms around her and holds her as close as the barrier will allow. She sighs deeply before moving away, “It’s not the same.”

“I’m sorry,” John smiles sadly, “but you know what might cheer you up?”

“Noooo.”

“Story telling. I’m going to tell the Athosian kids a scary story. You want to come and listen?”

Mare looks at John in amusement.  She knows the story he’s talking about and knows that the kids won’t find it scary in the least, “Which one, _Nightmare on Elm Street_ or _Friday the 13 th_?”

“ _Friday the 13 th_. It’s going to be great.”

“Yeah, I’m going to pass.  I think the kids will be more focused on what a hockey mask is than the ‘scary story’ you’ll be telling,” Meredith chuckles as she starts to walk away from him.

“No they won’t,” John objects to her retreating back.

Meredith smiles as she heads on her way, a little happier.

\---------SGA---------SGA--------

An hour after she left John he calls her over the coms, asking her to meet in the conference room and bring what she’d need to enable a DVD to play on the screen.

Meredith arrives to John, Aiden, and Telya talking about American football, of all things. (If you’re going to talk about a sport you should talk about hockey. Now _that’s_ a sport).  Meredith shakes her head at them and begins to interface her computer to the screen.

“Teyla,” Meredith began as she finished, “You shouldn’t let John brain wash you, hockey is by far the better sport.”

“You’re just biased because you’re Canadian,” John says as he pulls her down onto the couch he and Aiden had moved.

“At least hockey can’t be confused with a different sport,” Meredith retorts as she settles in, “I still can’t believe this was the personal item you decided to bring with you.”

“It’s starting,” John shushes her and for a few hours they were invested in the game.  The only times their focus was broken was when Teyla needed clarification about the game and when Ford went to make popcorn.

As the last minute of the game starts, John sits up in his seat, “Oh, here it comes.”

Everyone’s focus is on the screen as it shows the quarterback gain control of the ball, “ ** _Flutie is back. Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one… Flutie throws. The game is over. Hail Mary, it is caught!_** ”

“Oh! That is beautiful. Can you believe that?” John eats some popcorn out of the bowl in his lap.

Teyla looks at the rest of them in confusion, “Should I not?”

“Well,” John looks at her, “the defense didn’t cover the receiver because he didn’t think the quarterback could throw that far.”

“They seem very happy,” Teyla agrees, obviously still confused. (But one can’t blame her, American football is confusing).

“Well, they just won one of the best games of all time. Against all odds,” John tries to explain, a losing battle if there ever was one.

“Flutie won the Heisman that year,” Ford interjects.

“And then went on to play in Canada,” Mare tacks on.

Teyla turns to her, “He played hockey too?”

Ford ducks his head, snickering, as Meredith turns to stare at Teyla.  As Mare opens her mouth to say something, Elizabeth walks in from behind them, “Hey, what are you guys doing?”

All four turn to face her as John responds, “I’m teaching Teyla how football is the corner stone of western civilization.”

“And you didn’t invite me?” Elizabeth asks in mock offense.

John asks, surprised, “What, you like football?”

“No,” Elizabeth admits, “Not really.”

“Oh come on.  It-it’s real, it’s unpredictable, it’s full of passion and… beer, hotdogs…”

“It falls short of the excitement of hockey,” Meredith cuts John off.

“Hey!” he throws popcorn at her, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Elizabeth grabs some popcorn from Aiden, “I just can’t understand. You’re allowed one personal and you chose this.”

“It’s a metaphor,” John insists, “Don’t you see? This expedition is the biggest Hail Mary in history.”

Teyla looks over at him baffled, “What is a Hail Mary?”

“It’s a-a play that you just saw,” John tries to explain, “It’s named after a prayer. See, there’s this woman, her name is Mary, and she… uh… Did I mention how much I like Ferris wheels?”

Mare rolls her eyes and leans over John to see Teyla better, “Hail Mary is a name given to a move that has a low chance of working out, but due to circumstances, it is the best option.  When it works out, and even when it doesn’t, it’s given the designation Hail Mary.  And John.”

John looks at her stretched across him, “Yeah?”

“Everyone knows you like Ferris wheels. It’s like one of the first things you mention when you meet someone new.”

Aiden burst out laughing at the face his commander makes.  Elizabeth and Teyla join him in the mirth, while John, forgetting that Mare can’t be touched, goes to tickle her into submission. Mare, forgetting as well, jumps up and runs out of the room yelling a good night as she races to her and John’s room.

He ends up catching her at their door and leans in for a kiss that’s blocked by her shield. He groans and drops his forehead to hers, “Damn it. I forgot about the damn thing.”

“Me too,” Meredith sighs.  Her eyes widen in horror, “Oh no.”

“What?” John asks as he follows her inside.

Meredith starts trying to grab her clothes in an effort to change.  All that happens is her hands being stopped by the shield, “Shit! I can’t change in to pajamas.  Fuck!”

Meredith drops face first on to the bed. John lays down next to her and can see her being almost suspended off the bed by the shield.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.  But at least we know it’ll come off tomorrow.”

“Ugh.”

\----------SGA----------SGA---------

A while later, John is sitting up in bed reading as Mare continues to try and suffocate using the mattress.  A knock is heard on the door, jerking both of them to attention.

“Major? Major!” is heard and John jumps up from the bed.  Meredith sits up as the door opens.  One of the Athosians, Halling, is standing there on crutches with one of the children, Wes, but not his son, Jinto.

“Jinto’s missing,” Halling explains, “I can’t find him. I told him to be careful.  Anything he touches could be dangerous.”

Meredith walks to the door as Wes asks, “What if there are monsters here?”

John looks at him with determination, “Then we’ll find him.”

John grabs his jacket and turns to her, “Go to the control room and see what can be done from there.”

“Okay,” Meredith walks out after him and watches as he leads the other two off before heading to the control room. 

When Meredith arrives Peter is already there, “I don’t know if you have heard, but Jinto’s missing.”

The two begin going through the city’s mainframe and finish as Elizabeth arrives, “Can we use the sensors to locate him?”

Meredith shakes her head, “We don’t have nearly enough power to activate the whole city at one time.”

“And even if we could,” Peter adds, “the sensors don’t distinguish,” the power flickers, “…individuals.”

“And,” Meredith continues, “for all we know there could be shielded areas, or, um, malfunctioning sensors,” she gestures to the ceiling, “We are getting some strange energy readings in one of the unexplored areas across the city.”

Weir looks at the city schematic before turning away, “Activate the communication system.”

Meredith presses a few keys, “Done.”

Elizabeth glances at her in surprise before continuing, “Jinto, this is Dr. Weir.  If you can hear me, please respond.” Elizabeth’s voice echoes throughout the city, “Jinto? If you’re lost if you can’t-“

Before Elizabeth could finish her sentence, the screens and electronic devices the expedition brought shut down.  Only the lights remain on.

Peter taps on his computer, “We’ve lost power.”

“We’ve still got lights,” Meredith rushes up to the back console as does Peter. 

He presses a button and everything turn back on, “I don’t know why that happened.”

The sound of the iris on the Stagate turning on causes everyone to jerk towards the gate.  Elizabeth turns to Peter as Meredith stares at the gate in horror. Peter lifts his hand up and moves away from the console, “It wasn’t me.”

It turns back off. The three stare at each other, perturbed, until the DHD begins to dial out by itself.  As the gate begins the encoding sequence Mare and Peter rush to the DHD.

Elizabeth commands, “Shut it down now!”

Meredith presses the cancel key, the button in the center of the DHD.

“What the hell is going on?” Elizabeth demands.

“I don’t know,” Meredith admits, mystified by the events that occurred.

“Nothing like this has happened before,” Peter agrees.

“We’ve only been here for a couple of days,” Meredith states, the two stare at her, “This stuff is pretty old. It’s that, or there really are ghosts.”

Peter and Elizabeth look at Meredith with skepticism. Meredith is about to say more when John coms in, “ _Control room, this is Sheppard. The lights just went out_.”

“Major, we’re experiencing some technical malfunctions.” Weir informs him.

Meredith begins to explain, “It could have something to do with the interfaces between our naquadah generators and the city. Well, that, or the way we isolated certain systems could be causing erroneous operations in the Ancient programming.”

“I’ll run a diagnostic on the power flow,” Peter heads off to do it.

Elizabeth turns to Mare with a smirk, “I wouldn’t have thought you would believe in ghosts.”

“I never used to,” Meredith states, “But then I came to a galaxy that has these beings called ‘Wraiths” that can suck the life out of you with their hands.  What the hell kind of evolutionary trait is that?”

“Doctor Weir.”

Both of them turn to the Gate room staircase landing where Teyla stands.

“Teyla, I’ll be right there,” Elizabeth turns to Meredith, “Do what you can.”

Elizabeth heads over to Teyla as Meredith sarcastically replies, “Thanks.”

Meredith looks down at her hands.  They were shaking.  She swallows and looks around before putting her hands into her pockets and walking over to Peter to help run the diagnostic.

Over the coms Elizabeth says, “ _Major Sheppard, this is Weir. One of the Athosians is claiming to have seen what she’s calling a shadow.  Teyla says that she senses no Wraiths here, but I’m still concerned_.”

John’s voice is heard next, “ _All right, all teams fall back to the gate room and wait for further instructions_.”

Over the next twenty minutes, Teyla pulls Elizabeth out two more times. Elizabeth walks back into the control room a final time and Meredith comes to stand next to her.  A few minutes later, John and Halling walk in.  John walks up to where Mare and Elizabeth are, “I’ve secured access to all the control towers and living quarters.”

“Two more Athosians reported seeing the shadows.” Elizabeth informs him.

“You know, I don’t get that.  That means the Wraith would be here.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I don’t think they want to scare us. When they do decide to come, they’re going to start blowing the crap out of this place with their ships.”

“So what? The Athosians are just seeing things?”

“Well like Teyla said, it’s a scary place for them.”

“Not just for them,” Meredith interjects as Teyla walks over to them from where she had been conversing with Halling.

“Halling wished to speak with Jinto.” Teyla informs them.

“Please,” Elizabeth gestures to the control panel.

Meredith walks over and presses a few keys, “Go ahead.”

“Jinto… If you can her me I’m not angry.  I just want to know that you’re safe,” Halling’s voice echoes through the city, “So if you are lost or hurt, stay where you are. Make some noise if you can. We will find you.”

Halling removes his crutches from under his arms. He stands with his hands in front of his chest, fingertips touching, head bowed down, “Pereh lumi… et tempo ateri.”

“What is that, Latin?” John whispers to Elizabeth.  Meredith leans on the console and shakes her head to relieve some dizziness.

“It’s Ancient. ‘Fathers of light of the everlasting temple’?” Elizabeth replies, looking at Teyla for confirmation.

“It is a prayer to the Ancestors,” Teyla affirms.

Halling raises his hands and holds them level with his head, “If you are angry that we have unrightfully inhabited your great city, we humbly apologize.  We mean no harm. We leave if it is your wish, but I will not go without my son.”

Almost as if an omen, all of the lights in the control room go out, and Meredith drops to floor in a dead faint.  The shield that had been on her for the past 16 hours turns dark and falls to ground as John lifts her up to take her to the infirmary.

\--------SGA--------SGA-------

When Meredith regains consciousness it’s to an IV, John holding her hand, and a murmured conversation.  She inhales and tightens her hold.  The conversation dies off as her eyes flutter open.

“Ah. There’s Sleepin’ Beauty,” Carson says as he and John help her sit up.

“What happened?” Meredith holds her head, “One second I hear Halling speaking Latin and the next I’m in here?”

Carson starts to examine her, “Ya fainted.  You’re blood sugar dropped ta abou’ 55mg/dL.  Thankfully the shield popped off like ya thought it would.”

Meredith looks at the IV, “Yeah, no kidding.”

John squeezes her hand before radioing Elizabeth, “Doctor Weir, this is Sheppard.  Mare’s okay.  Beckett’s got her hooked up to an IV, and he says she’ll be fine.”

John kisses Meredith’s head and walks out of the Infirmary.

“So… Can I have something to eat?” Meredith asks hopefully.

Carson laughs as he heads off to find her something.

\---------SGA-------SGA--------

Meredith is called to the control room about twenty minutes later.  Carson sends her off with a power bar, some juice, and a warning to eat every two hours for the next six.  She arrives to find Peter and John briefing Elizabeth.

“It didn’t look like the phantoms the Wraith make you see, but I can see how the Athosians would be confused,” John says.

“What did it look like?” Elizabeth inquires.

“It looked like a…” John trails off, unable to come up with an accurate term.

“Darkness,” Peter says, “It surrounded the naquadah generator and started to grow, like it was feeding off the energy.”

“When it shut down, the whole… whatever it was, just went away,” John explains.

Meredith looks at them with her arms crossed, “If this thing feeds off of energy, we could be in serious trouble.”

“So we need to figure out exactly what it is and what to do about it,” Elizabeth concludes.

“We know it’s attracted to energy,” Peter states.

“How about shutting down the generators,” Elizabeth suggests.

“Well, uh…” Meredith speaks up, “people also give off energy, granted, it’s negligible compared to that of a naquadah generator.  But you take away this thing’s only other obvious food source, and-“

“Are you saying it could come after us?” Elizabeth cut her off.

“I only know one thing for sure.  And that is that flying darkness that eats energy, can only be very, very bad.”

“Okay. We keep the power on.  Grodin, figure out a way to detect it, and in the meantime, Major, establish constant surveillance on all the generators. If one of them is targeted, we’ll it shut down remotely.  I mean, hopefully we can keep this… thing busy until we figure out a way to get rid of it,” Elizabeth turns on the radio, “Attention, everyone. This is Weir. For the time being, we need you all to remain in your quarters unless otherwise instructed. If you see anything out of the-“

“ _Hello?_ ” cuts Elizabeth off, “ _Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?_ ”

“Jinto?” John asks.

“ _Major Sheppard!_ ” Jinto exclaims.  Meredith goes to a computer to try to figure where Jinto is communicating from.

“Are you okay?” Elizabeth inquires.

“ _I’m scared_ ,” he admits.

“Where are you?” John questions.

“ _I don’t know_.”

“Jinto, start at the beginning. Tell us how you got to where you are,” Elizabeth instructs.

“ _I was in the hall outside my quarters_.”  John, Elizabeth and Meredith rush out of the control room and head to the Athosian living area.  Along the way, Telya and Halling meet up with them.  When they arrive at the hall they look around for an indication of where Jinto could have gone.

“Where did you go next?” John asks.

“ _I can’t remember_.”

Teyla cuts in, “He’s used to the forest, being able to see the stars at night.”

“ _I found a small room filled with boxes from Earth._ ”

Meredith and John look at the door at the end of the hall.  They exchange a glance before walking to it.  John opens it, only to find an empty little room, about the size of an elevator.

“No boxes,” John states.

“ _They’re here with me._ ”

“Someone must have thought it would make a nice closet,” Meredith says turning to look at the others.

John and Meredith walk into the room, as they enter, a screen uncovers itself.  On it is a basic layout of Atlantis with glowing dots on it, “This is definitely not a closet,” John whispered to Mare, “Jinto, did the panel start to glow when you stepped inside?”

“ _Yes_!”

“Did you touch it?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“What exactly?”

 _“I don’t remember_.”

“Just before he disappeared we got an unusual energy reading around here,” Meredith gestures to the top right area of the map.  John goes to touch the highest dot in that area, “Wait, wait, wait! We don-“ John touches the dot and the doors slide closed, “-t know what it could do.”

The doors open to reveal, not the hallway with Teyla, Elizabeth, and Halling, but a darkened room with things in it. They step out, John with his gun raised and Meredith with starry eyes.

“It must be a transporter!” Meredith barely refrains from squealing, “That’s so COOL!”

John rolls his eyes at his wife, “We’ll name it later. We’re looking for Jinto. Remember?”

Jinto’s head pops up from behind a stack of stuff and he rushes over to the two of them, “Major Sheppard!”

John kneels down to Jinto’s eye level, “Jinto.  Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

John radios out, “We’ve got Jinto. He’s okay.”

Meredith walks over to a console standing in the middle of the room. It activates when she reaches it and the room lights up.

John walks over to her with Jinto, “Do you know what this place is?”

“It’s some sort of research lab,” She replies, “We’ve come across a few of them.  These consoles generally access central computer systems, so Jinto could’ve caused what we thought were malfunctions from here.”

Meredith turns to look at Jinto, “Look, I need to know everything you touched in here.”

Jinto looks at the couple nervously before pointing at the things he had touched at some point since he arrived in the lab.  After determining what Jinto had touched, Meredith accesses the database through the console.  As she goes through the files, a conversation occurs over the coms.

“ _Lieutenant Ford… This is Dr. Grodin. I’m tracking the entity heading your way. You might want to get out of there_.”

“ _Roger that… Uh, this is Ford. A bulkhead just blocked our way.  There’s no panel on the wall or any way to open it that we can see_.”

“ _Roger that_.”

Weir cuts in, “ _McKay?_ ”

“We didn’t touch anything.  It could be the entity causing random malfunctions.  The proximity to that large an energy disturbance could cause the Ancient technology to go haywire.”

“ _Lieutenant, double-back and try the door on the east side of the hall._ ” Elizabeth commands.

“ _This door won’t open either_.”

“Pull open the console on the wall,” Meredith orders.

“ _What next_?”

“I dunno.  What do you see?”

“ _Three crystals_.”

“Okay. Take out the middle one and move the top one down.”

“ _It’s not working_.”

“Um, bridge the two using the middle crystal.”

“ _Are you sure about this_.”

“Uh, no.”

The next thing everyone hears is a devastating scream. John and Meredith share a solemn glance.

“ _Man down.  I need a medical team._ ”

John and Mare stare at each other in silence until she breaks it, “Go check on Ford. Take Jinto with you so that he can return to his father.”

“What about you?” John asks softly.

“I still need a bit more time to finish going through everything. I’ll be fine.”

John gazes at her for a few more seconds before placing a kiss on her head, “Okay, but I’m still going to assign a few guys here.”

He leads Jinto to the transporter (STILL SO COOL!!!!!!!!) and they both walk in, the doors sliding shut behind them.

\----------SGA----------SGA---------

Meredith had just finished determining what everything Jinto touched was, when John and Elizabeth walked into the lab.

“Apparently, it’s also an elevator,” John remarks as he walks up to his wife.

“Really?” Mare asks, interest piqued.

“We can stop taking the stairs everywhere,” Elizabeth comments.

“What have you got?” John questions, getting back on topic.

“Well,” Mare gets up from where she had been sitting, “Believe it or not, Jinto didn’t touch anything of, uh, any consequence.  Except this,” Meredith indicates an object that looks like a medium sized generator.  Meredith slides a switch on it and the cylindrical center lights up, “It seems to have its own power source, like the Jumpers.”

“What is it?” Elizabeth inquires.

“Um, well it’s some sort of containment vessel for the energy creature,” Meredith explains.

“And Jinto released it?” John assumes.

“It seems that way,” Meredith agrees, “As I suggested the entity’s what’s been causing most of our technical problems.  It was captured for observation.  The Ancients were researching Ascension.”

Elizabeth looks at her, shocked. “Really?”

John looks between the two, confused, “What exactly is ‘ascension’?”

“Well,” Meredith begins, “at some point during their evolution, the Ancients reached an advanced stage of being where they were able to rid themselves of their physical bodies and rise to a higher plain of existence, one in which they live as pure energy,” John gives her a skeptic look. “I know, it sounds insane.  This, though, this is the first indication that there may have been some evolutionary intervention to get there.”

“A little gene therapy on their own, huh?” John mused.

“Well, I haven’t read all the notes, but I do know that the entity is energy, and it feeds on energy.  Ford’s lucky.  The more it feeds, the bigger it gets, and the bigger it gets… Well, the bigger it gets the more charged it gets, and the deadlier it becomes.”

“Is it intelligent?” Elizabeth asks.

“Not any more than a… a tree.  According to the research it’s sentient, but that’s about it.  This thing is going to suck the power out of the generators, and then it’s going to turn its attention to us,” Meredith says.

“All right, what do we do about it?”

“The entity has been trapped here since before the Ancients left.”

“I know I’d be pissed,” John quips.

“And hungry,” Meredith adds, “The point is, this device, it was designed to attract it, capture it, and hold it for observation.  There’s a chance we might be able to get it back inside.  I’ll just need a little more time to figure out how.”

Meredith goes back to the computer she had been using and starts scrolling.  Elizabeth wanders around the lab looking at all the Ancient research.  John stands behind Mare, looking at the Ancient text she’s going through.  After finding something worthwhile, Meredith walks back over to the containment device.  John follows and leans against the table.

Elizabeth moves over to the abandoned laptop, pulling up the tracking program Peter set up, “It’s not falling for the same tricks anymore.”

“How smart is this thing?” John inquires.

“Mare?” Elizabeth asks after Meredith doesn’t respond.

“I don’t know.  But this is much simpler than I thought,” Meredith smiles as Elizabeth comes over, “It’s like a mousetrap.  But instead of cheese, it emits a signature of energy that attracts the creature.  This button here,” Meredith points to a button near the top of the device, “causes the device to emit the energy, this button here,” she indicates to the button under the previous one, “shuts it in.  The only downside, is that uh, someone is actually going to have to be here to push the buttons.”

John sighs in resignation, “I’ll do it.”

“What?” Meredith turns to him in shock.

“Okay,” Elizabeth agrees, “and Meredith can give you her shield for extra protection.”

“No, I can’t,” Meredith denies, “It only works for whoever puts it on first.  Kind of like an imprint.”

“Well that’s unfortunate,” Elizabeth sighs.

“But maybe I could-“ Meredith begins.

“No,” John denies.

“I didn’t even get-“

“No.”

“But-“

“Hell no.”

Meredith glares at her husband, who’s glaring back.  Their eyes stay locked for a minute before she blinks. Mare groans in defeat, “Damn it, John!  Fine, you win.”

John smirks before turning to Elizabeth, who had been watching the argument in fascination. “Let’s do this.”

\---------SGA----------SGA---------

Meredith is standing behind Peter when Elizabeth walks into the control room with a candle.

“We’re ready,” Meredith informs her.

“You do realize that when we shut down the power, we’re going to lose the sensors.  We are not going to be able to track it,” Peter states.

“We have security personnel posted around the living quarters,” Elizabeth reassures, “At least we’ll have some warning.” She places the candle onto the console and lights it, “Teyla told the Athosian children that lighting a candle will help protect them.”

“There’s actually a higher chance of it enticing the creature more,” Meredith muses. Elizabeth and Peter turn to look at her, “What?”

Elizabeth shakes her head and radios John, “Okay, Major, go ahead.”  She turns to Peter, “Now.”

“Shutting down power,” Peter begins shutting the power off. All of the consoles shut down and the lights turn off.  The only light is coming from the candle and a few scattered flashlights.

“ _It’s coming_.”   Everyone in the control room exchanges nervous glances as John’s voice comes over the radio, “ _I think we’re going to need a bigger boat_.”

“Size doesn’t matter.” Meredith says.

“ _That’s a myth_.”

Meredith chuckles, “It’ll fit. The device traps the creature in subspace. You just need to make sure it gets all the way inside the containment vessel.”

“ _Son of a bitch_.”

“What happened?” Elizabeth asks.

“ _Damn thing took one look and went away. It’s a lot smarter than we thought._ ”

“Okay, come back to the control room. Weir out.”

\----------SGA----------SGA--------

Meredith, John, Elizabeth and Peter stand around a console discussing what to do next, while Telya stands on the balcony gazing at the Stargate.

“We need to know where it is now,” Elizabeth declares.

“We’ll have to turn the power on to use the sensors,” Peter informs her.

“You can’t do that!” Meredith exclaims.

“Do it,” Elizabeth orders, “but just the operations tower.”

Peter turns the power back on for the tower and all of the consoles and lights come back on.

“What now?” John asks.

“It’s headed this way now,” Elizabeth states.

“Well, yeah.  You turned the power back on,” Meredith remarks.

“We can’t go on like this,” Elizabeth tells her.

“Do you think it wants to be here?” Teyla interjects, drawing the room’s attention to her.

“What do you mean?” John questions.

“It’s been trapped for thousands of years, alone,” Teyla replies.

“It’s not alone anymore,” Elizabeth says.

“It doesn’t think on that level,” Meredith explains, “It just thinks about eating.”

John looks contemplative.

\---------SGA----------SGA-----------

“This is a bad idea,” Mare whispers to John as he opens the naquadah generator holding container, on top of a MALP.  She pulls out a palm sized tablet from the container.

“Do you have a better idea,” John responds as she types away on the tablet, readying the generator.

“No,” Mare says as he pulls out the generator from its foam prison.

“It’s coming,” Teyla informs them from the balcony.

“No, really?” Meredith mumbles sarcastically as she pulls the top of the generator up, twists it and pushes it back down.  The generator starts making a high-pitched squeal as it lights up.  Meredith places it back into the container, then closes the lid, “Let’s just hope it follows this through the wormhole.  Good luck.”

Meredith kisses John on the cheek as she heads back up to the control room.  She walks over to stand near Peter and sees the shield device sitting near her.  She goes to pick it up, but is distracted by Peter, “It’s almost here.”

“Do you have an address?” Elizabeth asks.

“M4X-337, a barren wasteland,” Peter replies.

Meredith walks over to the DHD.  Elizabeth makes eye contact, “Dial it.”

Meredith begins dialing the address.  The Gate turns on and the MALP begins a slow pace to the gate.  The entity arrives and begins to cover the room.  It’s Meredith’s first time seeing it, and no words could do it justice.  It looks like a black fog, almost void, like complete absence of color.  But it isn’t moving.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Meredith says as she stares at it.

“I can’t see if the MALP got through,” Elizabeth moves around trying to get a better angle.

“The entity could have drained the battery,” Peter states.

“It could be feeding off the generator, the Stargate.  This is bad,” Meredith declares.

“Shut it down,” Elizabeth commands. 

Meredith pushes the shutdown button, but nothing happens.  She presses it again, “I can’t!”

“The consoles are dead,” Peter says, stunned.

“There must be something we can do,” Elizabeth insists.

Meredith turns to where the shield device lays.  She continues to stare at it as Peter talks, “We don’t know if the MALP is still down there.  It’s possible that the entity will still go through the gate once it’s depleted the energy in the naquadah generator on the MALP.”

Meredith walks over to the console and picks up the shield.  She walks to the stairs as Elizabeth says, “Or it could just continue to feed off the gate’s energy.”

Meredith puts on the shield and walks down the stairs.  As she reaches the fog of blackness, she hears John shout.

“MARE! DON’T! STOP!”

Meredith turns to look at him for a second before continuing on into the entity.  As it pushes to reach her body, the shield protects her, turning a translucent green where the entity touches.  Her head passes through and the way the entity appears changes.  Meredith can see as electrified particles light up the area.  She sees the MALP and rushes over.  Grabbing the naquadah generator case, she walks over to the Stargate and tosses it through.  The entity rushes past her into the gate.  It doesn’t take long before it disappears, and the gate shuts off.

Meredith’s head drops back as she lets out a hysteric laugh, twirling to face the staircase.  Arms wrap around her, lifting her off the ground, and the shield drops.  Her feet touch the ground again as a face buries itself into her hair.

“Never, ever, ever, do that again,” John breaths into her ear.

“I think I’ll leave the hero-ing to you from now on,” Meredith agrees.

“Ehhem.” Meredith peaks over John’s shoulder and sees Elizabeth, Peter, and Teyla.  Elizabeth raises her eyebrow as Teyla and Peter smother their laughter, “Major Sheppard, don’t you think Doctor McKay should probably be seen by Doctor Beckett?”

John takes a deep breath before releasing her, keeping an arm around her shoulders.  He nods to Elizabeth and begins escorting Mare to Medical.  Before they reach the door, Peter calls out to Meredith.

“Hey Mare?”

Mare turns to look at him.  He’s crouched in front of the gate.  He grabs something before standing back up, “What do you want me to do with this?”

It’s the shield, grey and inactive.  Meredith looks at it for a second, “Put it in my lab.  I think I can get it to work again.”

They being walking again until John stops then at the door, “By the way Teyla, that, was a Hail Mary.”

\----------SGA----------SGA--------

Later, when John and Meredith are lying in bed, John wraps his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him.  Her breaths are even, and her eyes are closed.  She knows that he knows that she’s not asleep.

“Please,” He chokingly whispers in the darkness, his right hand over her heart, the other arm wrapped around her waist, “Please don’t do something like that again.  I **can’t** lose you.”

His arms tighten briefly before relaxing. She brings her right hand up to lay on top of his and intertwines their fingers, “I love you.”

“God, Mare. I love you too.”

Meredith smiles and snuggles deeper into her husband’s embrace, feeling safe in Atlantis for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the Kudos! And the bookmarks!  
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!  
> Enjoy the week!


	4. Just why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Classic mission gone wrong. John's hurt, the Jumper's stuck, and Mere can't do anything but work on circuits.

Have you ever had one of those days where everything that could go wrong, does, and you wonder why getting out of bed that morning was a good idea? If you have, then you almost understand how Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay-Sheppard feels. Of course, you probably haven't gone through the shit she has, unless you're part of the SGC. Even then, you'd have to be in this galaxy to experience this bullshit. Because this situation is even worse than that stupid black cloud of doom.

-SGA-

"Okay, I think we're close enough to dial the gate," Ford calls out from the front section of the Puddle Jumper.

"Just hurry up and get us back!" Meredith call back. She's crouching next to John with her right hand on his left shoulder. And John, well, John has a giant ass bug attached to the right side of his neck.

"Get this damn thing off me," John growls. He's leaning on the Jumper's cargo bay door unable to move.

"We can't," Teyla informs him, kneeling to his right.

John looks at Mare, "Cut it off."

Meredith looks back to the front of the Jumper, "As soon as a connection is established, radio in that we've got a medical emergency!"

"There must be something we can do for him," Teyla says over John.

"There's an emergency first aid kit behind the pilot's seat. Get it," Meredith tells her. Teyla nods and rushes to the front compartment. Mare lays her other hand on his arm, "John everything we try to do to remove it make the pain worse. Just try to be still."

John carefully nods. Meredith moves a bit closer to his neck to get a better look at the creature. Up close she can see a bumpiness to its bluish exoskeleton. It has four legs and a yellowish underbelly. It's about the size of an adolescent cat with a meter long tail. And it has a death grip on John's throat with its pinchers.

Teyla comes back and hands Mare the kit, before kneeling back down. Meredith opens it and starts rifling through, "What am I expecting to find in here that can get rid of that thing?"

"Something for the pain," Teyla suggests.

"I don't think Tylenol's going to do it. He needs a doctor!" Meredith looks to the front compartment, "HOW MUCH LONGER!"

"Almost there!" Ford reassures.

Meredith looks back to John as his muscles start to seize under her hand. She grasps his hand in hers and lets him squeeze out the pain. Once his body relaxes again, Meredith stands up and starts to search the overhead baggage area for any other medical equipment as Teyla moves over to the medical kit to continue looking.

"Here we go!" Ford yells out. Meredith doesn't even give the announcement a second thought as she continues to search.

A second later there is a loud screeching sound, the kind you get between two metal joints that shouldn't touch. The next, a sharp pain to Meredith's temple. The third second, blackness.

-SGA-

Meredith's temple throbs as her eyes flutter open. She's on her side against the cargo doors. John is in front of her unconscious and with the bug still attached. She groans in discomfort as she maneuvers herself so that her back is to the bay door. What she sees in front of her has her rising to her knees in disbelief, and her heart dropping to her stomach in horror.

"Oh no," She stares in dismay at the wormhole horizon of the Stargate. The blue water-like substance undulating right behind the bulkhead doorway that separates the back and front compartments.

"What happened?" Teyla sits up, conscious as well.

"The drive pod," Meredith explains, "the wing things that stick out when we're flying must've failed to retract. That's the only thing it can be. It's that, or the Stargate shrunk, which I highly doubt. This is… this is a big problem."

"Okay," Teyla (I AM THE CALM IN THE STORM) Emmagan slowly stands, "What can we do?"

"I-I don't know if there's anything we can do. I mean, this is a very, very big problem," Meredith continues to stare at the event horizon, which allows her to catch sight of an arm extending out from it, "Give me a hand."

Meredith and Teyla rush over. They grab the arm and start pulling it away from the wormhole. Ford's body emerges.

"What the hell was that?" He exclaims as he stands up facing the gate, "That's strange."

"Yes, it is," Meredith agrees.

Ford points at it, "That is the-"

"Yes, It is." Mare confirms.

He stares at the event horizon, "That scraping sound… we're stuck."

"Yes, we are." Meredith states, "Apparently the engine pods failed to retract in time. Square peg, round hole."

"Can we pull Markham and Stackhouse out?" Aiden asks.

Meredith shakes her head, "Our hands and arms would dematerialize as soon as they cross the event horizon. There's uh- no way to reach them."

The shutter sound that had been consistently made since they awoke, got louder. The three turn to John. Meredith and Teyla rush into their previous positions as Aiden stands over them.

"The Major?"

"He must have been knocked unconscious by the impact," Teyla tells him.

" _Jumper One, this is Weir, what's your status?_ "

"This is Ford. Good to hear your voice. The four of us are still here but Markham and Stackhouse are inside the event horizon."

" _Say again?_ "

Meredith pulls out some gauze and begins to wipe away some of the sweat on John's forehead as Teyla searches through the first aid kit again.

"Ma'am," Aiden begins as he looks at the gate, "Jumper One is lodged in the Stargate. Dr. McKay, Teyla and myself are in the rear compartment with the Major. He's in bad shape. Markham and Stackhouse are in the forward section."

" _How did that happen?_ "

"Engine pods," Meredith says.

Aiden turns towards her, "We  **think**  it was one of the engine pods, but there's no way to be sure."

"It's the only viable possibility," Meredith states.

" _If I understand correctly, you won't be able to access the flight controls._ "

"Yes, Elizabeth," Meredith declares as she passes the gauze to Teyla before forcefully standing up, because nobody is understanding the DIRE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT THEY WERE IN, "it's an extremely intriguing conundrum, and one that I would love to discuss with you in  **detail until the Stargate shuts down and this ship is cut in two** -"

"Mare calm down-"

" **-at** **which** **point** **of** **course** -"

" _Meredith! If I'm going to be any help to you at all, I need to catch up. Lieutenant Ford, back it up for me._ " Meredith scoffs and moves back to her husband's side.

"We couldn't I.D. the Wraith base of operations from space, like we did the last time we were there," Aiden begins recounting, "So we went to the same landing coordinates as before to get a closer look."

-SGA-

*An hour earlier*

Meredith, Aiden, and Teyla followed John as he led them through the wooded area. They're team had been tasked to scope out the Wraith base John broke into a week ago. And John was not happy Meredith was there to say the least.

"How did you talk me into letting you join an off world team, again?" John asked Meredith over his shoulder.

"Well it involved a highly sophisticated argument about how it was highly probable that you would need my expertise at some point."

"Uh huh."

"And I had to agree to let Teyla teach me how to fight."

"Yes. I will get you tomorrow morning so we can begin, Dr. McKay." Teyla cut in.

"Great," Meredith sarcastically remarks, "And finally I think there was some silk and lace involved in your final agreement."

John smirked, "Mmm, I liked those. Where did you keep them hidden?"

Mare raised her eyebrow, "Why? So you can go snooping?"

"I'll have you know that I am an Air Force officer we do not –" Meredith deadpanned at him, "Okay, yeah, I'd snoop. But can you blame me? I want to know what I have to look forward to taking off you."

"Can you guys not talk about this in front of me," Ford interjected, "It's gross."

Meredith snickered, "Really out of all the adjectives in the English language, you decided on gross."

"It's a valid word and I'm sticking to it," Aiden defended.

"Yeah, okay," Meredith began to retort.

"Hold up," John commanded as the group neared the tree line. He pulled out some binoculars and walk the rest of the way out before kneeling. He peered out, then dropped his arms down, "It's gone."

"What?" Meredith exclaimed, "I thought you said it was in a mountainside."

"It was," Teyla affirmed, "We were inside it."

John still gazing at the area, gave the order, "Let's move."

The quartet headed off with John in the lead. It wasn't long before they came across a ginormous crater. It was at least 5km in diameter and 1km deep.

"This was the spot," John stared down into the hole.

"Well, now it's a hole," Meredith remarked.

"Wow, really," Sarcasm was dripping off John's words, "I hadn't noticed."

"Could it have been destroyed?" Teyla inquired.

"No," Aiden refuted, "This is not a blast crater."

"It looks like they just picked up and left," John stated, "So, ship?"

Aiden glanced at John in disbelief, "I don't know sir. That mountainside had trees growing on it."

"Yeah, but Wraiths hibernate for centuries right? So, a lot of trees could have overgrown in that time."

Teyla gazed out across the crater, "Then we were held prisoner inside one of the great ships I showed you in the drawings. They've left to begin culling worlds."

Meredith shook her head in horror. A giant ship filled with the monsters John told her about roaming the cosmos in search of its next buffet? The fuck is wrong with this galaxy? Unable to stomach staring at the depression left by the ship (and how did it rise up from the ground if it was as big as a mountain? Physics is failing her) Meredith turned her head to the side and observes the woods around the group, she double takes as silhouettes form and move, "There's movement over there!"

Shots are fired at the quartet. John shouts for them to move and they race off to the Jumper. Meredith takes one glance back, getting her first look at a Wraith. They are humanoid at first glance, but she can see the disturbingly grotesque features that make it obvious that they aren't. Her first observation is of the white, cotton candy like hair. Then it's the porcelain looking skin, not just the color or the complexion, but the fact that it's face looks like it's made like a porcelain doll.

Her glance is enough to make Meredith run just a bit faster, to get away from the creature that will probably visit her again in her nightmares.

-SGA-

"She hardly meant begin at the very beginning," Mere sneers at Aiden from her position next to John.

"This is intel she needs to know," Aiden states as he turns to face her.

"Intel that we can tell her when we don't have less than 38 minutes to fix the fucking crisis we're in!" Meredith exclaims standing up to get into Ford's face.

" _Hold on. Why thirty-eight minutes?_ " Dr. Weir's voice interjects.

"Because," Meredith grinds out (Seriously? Does no one study up on the one thing that allows them to go to different planets), "that's the maximum amount of time a Stargate can remain open in non-relativistic conditions. It's one of the more immutable laws of wormhole physics. And would you look at the time, we now have about thirty-five minutes left until the ship is cut into two and we all die. Are we all caught up now?"

" _I get it. What do you need?"_

"Help," Meredith one of her bags from the overhead carrier.

" _All right. Let me put Kavanagh, Grodin, and Simpson in a room. See what they come up with."_

"That's good. And the Czech, Ruzicka? Rerucha? Reznicek?"

" _Do you mean Dr. Zelenka?"_

"Yeah, him. We'll work it out on our end."

" _What else?_ "

"We'll call you," Meredith turns off her communicator and riffles through her bag pulling out her computer, tablet and a bundle of cords, "Man I could have sworn his name began with an 'R'."

Meredith moves to the left side of the Jumper and begins removing parts of wall coverings. Ford stands behind her gawking like a golem, "McKay what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to access some of the rear compartment circuits to see what I have to work with. If you could quit hovering that would be great!"

"Maybe if you weren't tearing up the ship I wouldn't hover," Aiden retorts.

Meredith whips around, "I'm not tearing apart the ship you gun toting mindless-"

"Hi, Teyla," interrupts her (amazing) insult. Mere and Aiden turn as one to the sight of John conscious, "Are you all right?"

Teyla nods to hem and continues her search through the med kit, "I am fine, Major Sheppard."

"Something tells me we haven't made it to Atlantis yet."

"No," Teyla shakes her head.

John sighs and looks forward, "Mere, is that what I think it is."

Meredith walks up to him and kneels to his left, before she finally says, "Yeah."

"We're stuck, sir," Lieutenant Ford clarifies.

"So my day just got a hell'a'va lot better? Great."

Meredith grabs his left hand, "We're going off the assumption that it's one or both of the drive pods. I don't know whether it was mechanical failure or-"

"It was damaged as we tried to take off." Aiden interjected.

Meredith shook her head, "There's no way of actually knowing what caused it, but, um, do you know of someway of manually retracting the mechanism-"

"Cockpit, on the left." John interrupts.

"Great, but the cockpit is demolecularized at the moment. Anyway back here that you know of?"

"No."

"Great. Well nothing's changed then," Meredith kissed John on the top of his head and stands up, "If you'll excuse me, I'll be over there, taking some readings if you need me."

Meredith sits down on the right bench and pull up a schematic on her tablet. As she goes through it thinking of different scenarios to give them potentially a few more minutes, Ford sits down on the other bench. After thirty seconds of working on the schematic, Meredith comes up with a short term solution. She jumps up out of her seat and moves to the wall in front of her. She presses a button on the panel there and the Bulkhead doors close. Hiding the Stargate from sight and drenching the cabin in inky darkness.

"What are you doing?" Aiden's voice asks as Meredith fumbles with a flashlight.

Light blinks into existence, "Sorry, Here."

" _Jumper One, this is Atlantis."_ Peter's voice crackles over the communicators.

"We're still here," Meredith states.

" _We recommend closing the bulkhead door._ "

"Oh, good thinking," Meredith deadpans as she gazes at the closed door, "What else?"

" _We're still working on the problem. We'll get back to you. Atlantis base out."_

"Thanks for calling," Meredith calls out irritated, " **That**  was helpful."

"Why'd you close the door?"

Meredith looks at Aiden, "So that when the Stargate shuts down and the forward section of the ship is severed we aren't directly exposed to the void of space."

"Will it hold?"

"Like a screen door on a submarine. But I prefer apoxia to explosive decompression. It's a personal thing."

"If the air's going to get thin in here, you really need to calm down."

"Wait 'til you see how thin it's going to get in twenty-seven minutes!"

"Mere-" John cuts in.

"Vacuum. That thin!" She continues giving her husband no mind.

"Knock it off." John commands, gazing at her in concern, knowing how she can get.

"Oh, I'm sorry! But no one seems to comprehend just how monumentally screwed we are!"

"Don't talk to me about screwed!" Meredith stares at John for a long second, before blinking and looking away, swallowing her tears and the lingering fear that in twenty-six minutes the both of them and the rest of the team will be dead. "And let's not give up on Markham and Stackhouse, either. There's plenty of time left to solve this, but you've got to calm down and use your brain, babe."

Meredith snorts, "I thought I told you that was a stupid endearment."

"Yeah well everything else just didn't flow right."

Meredith inhales deeply before thinking, "We can access a lot from back here, maybe I can find the circuitry for the drive pods and manually retract them that way."

"There's only one way to find out," John says.

"Right," Meredith nods. She looks at the wall she had already pulled apart and turns to face the other one, she pulls down an overhanging compartment filled with control crystals. She grabs her tablet and connector cable and begins the tedious process of checking every control crystal for the drive pod circuit. Listening to John and her teammates talk.

"Here," Teyla's voice, a rustle of cloth then, "You seem stronger."

"No, the pain's just not so bad anymore."

"That's good," Ford.

"No, it isn't," that grabs Mere's attention. She turns to see John, "I can't feel my legs. Hands and arms are numb. I can barely move them, and the feeling's creeping up. Look Lieutenant, what I'm trying to say is… if you don't get this thing off of me, I'm pretty sure I have less time than you do."

Meredith closes her eyes and tilts her head down. She counts to ten and inhales deeply. She exhales roughly before open her eyes and getting back to work, trying to get her mind off her potentially dying husband.

"Lieutenant, get your knife out and cut this damn thing off. It can't hurt as much as it did last time," John demands.

"The last time we almost lost you," Teyla states.

"Well you're going to lose me anyway."

"Don't say that John!" Meredith exclaims not looking away from the control crystals. Muttering a curse when the one she's test comes back negative, "And don't make that face."

"Sir," Ford cuts in before John is able to retort, "We tried to get it off you when we were back on the planet. We tried everything. Even shooting it didn't work. It just hurt you more. They thing just heals itself."

"It feeds on your strength. Like a Wraith." Teyla explains.

"You just had to say that." John groans.

"My father often told stories of creatures such as this. I always thought he was trying to keep the children from straying far from our camp."

"Great. Did he tell you how to kill it?"

I don't know, sir. I don't think we can,' Aiden interjects.

"Well, I could use a second option. Get Beckett on the radio."

"Atlantis, this is Jumper One. Do you read?"

" _Jumper One this is Atlantis, we copy."_

"Could you get Doctor Beckett on the radio?"

" _Affirmative. Over here, sir."_

" _This is Dr. Beckett. How's our patient?"_

"This is Ford. Major Sheppard's conscious, but the creature's still latched onto him."

"How do you feel about house calls Doc?" John asks casually.

" _Would if I could, Major, but you'll have ta settle for long distance. I'm told ya have somethin' of a cling-on?"_

"Well I dunno if I'd call Mere a cling-on." John joked.

"Hey! Don't drag me into shit when I'm busy!" Meredith retorted.

"But I do have what has to be the biggest, ugliest tick I've ever seen. And I've dealt with a shit ton of ticks." John continued.

" _How did it attach itself?_ "

"Well, we were on our way back to the Jumper under fire from the Wraiths. I was giving cover to the others when I backed into a giant ass spider web. Next thing I know Charlotte's ugly step-sister is clamping down on my neck."

" _Can ya describe it ta me?_ "

Ford takes over, "Yes, sir. It's about two feet long, including tail. That's wrapped under his armpit. It has two sharp, spiny things in his neck near Major Sheppard's carotid artery.

" _I'll need more'n tha' son."_

"Its forelegs- I think- they're wrapped around the Major's throat. Uh, I can't see any eyes. . . It's got a real hard shell, but there's a soft leechy part underneath."

" _Major, wha' are your physical symptoms?"_

"Well, at first it felt like a knife in the eye. Since then I've lost all the feelings in my extremities. I can't move.

" _So, it incapacitates first with pain, then paralysis._

"I need to be able to move around to help Meredith with the mechanical problem. Markham and Stackhouse are dead if I don't."

Meredith glances at him, "Honey even if you could move I don't think you could help."

John grimaces at her while Carson continues,  _"What have you tried?"_

"I tried to cut it off," Ford replies, "I tried to burn it off. Hell, I even tried shooting it off – nine mil point-blank. Nothing. I don't think I can do anything worse without kill the Major along with it."

"I believe the creature is related in some way to the Wraith." Teyla commented.

Meredith turned to the trio, "Really?"

" _How so?"_

"It healed itself after each attempt to remove it by sapping life from Major Sheppard, Just as a Wraith would," Teyla revealed.

Meredith paused, "Well, the Wraith would have had to evolve from something. It is possible that they're some sort of prehistoric cousin."

"Listen Doc, the Major's getting worse. We gotta do something now." Aiden states.

" _Ya said th'creature had an underside of exposed soft tissue? Like a Leech?"_

"Yeah I tried to cut into it. The thing practically strangled him to death."

" _Son, ya don' cutta leech off. Ya pour salt on them."_

"And if that doesn't work?"

" _Give me a momen' ta set up everythin' we got tha' you migh' have on tha' Jumper."_

The comm went silent after that last sentence. A flurry of movement came from the back of the Jumper as Ford and Teyla started to pull out everything in the medkit and everything they could find in the shelves above the seats. They laid everything down in organized chaos. Meredith continued checking the crystals hoping Zelenka (finally got the name down!) was doing better than she was.

Carson's voice crackled through the air about four minutes after he left the comm, " _All right we've got everythin' from th'Jumper manifest ready an' laid out here. What's your inventory?"_

Ford looks at the stockpile, "Okay, so from the vests, we've got a Swiss Army knife, some chocolate, some water, matches. Emergency Kit, we have alcohol, iodine, painkillers-"

"What is this?" Meredith glances over and sees Teyla with a defibrillator kit.

"Teyla found a portable defibrillator in the ship stores." Aiden states.

" _Already thought o'tha'. Major Sheppard would receive th'same electric shock. It would likely kill 'im."_

"Right."

" _Try everythin', one item at a time."_

Meredith reads one of the crystal's information on her computer, "Maybe?" She triggers a reaction and the lights in the compartment come on, "Nope."

" _Jumper One, this is Weir. Dr. Zelenka's come up with something."_

Meredith looks down at her computer, "Zelenka… Why can I never remember that name?"

Grodin begins talking, " _He's positively identified the control systems in the port side of the Jumper that retract the drive pod. I'm relaying the schematics to your data-pad."_

"Thank you!" Meredith cheers, "Now we're getting somewhere!"

"What?" Ford asks, unsure of what is occurring.

"Zelenka's identified the control pathways to the engine pod," Mere states as she reads the sent schematics, "which means that my chances of fixing this problem has increased from one in a million to one in a thousand," The trio at the bulkhead door look at her like she's crazy, "It's uh… it's better than what we had before. Elizabeth?"

" _Yes?"_

"I'll only have seven to nine seconds to warn you if I accidentally trigger a catastrophic overload. So, uh… if I say raise the shields, you might want to uh, raise the shields. Don't hesitate."

Meredith glances over at the others, who are looking at her in horror. She grimaces at them in return. Weir's voice crackles over them, " _We're aware of the risks Mere. Do your best."_

"Yeah, no pressure," Meredith mumbles as she turns back to the crystals.

Behind her Aiden and Teyla begin their work on trying to remove the giant blue tick from John's neck.

"We're beginning with iodine," Ford states. A second goes by where nothing is said, "Scratch iodine."

" _Wha' else have ya got there?"_

"Here," Teyla says.

"We're going to try alcohol now."

" _Place few drops on th' soft tissue t'see how it reacts."_

"Save some for me," John jokes.

"Wrong type of alcohol, sir." Ford responds.

"What's the good of that?"

"Not much, sir. No reaction to the alcohol."

" _Right. What next?"_

"Did the doctor not say to pour salt on the creature?" Teyla questions.

"I'm pretty sure that was a metaphor. But that doesn't matter. Try everything." Meredith states, trying to focus on the crystals and not her husband.

"No reaction. Hand me the water."

The minute Meredith hears the telling splash of water hitting a surface, John makes a choked sound. It's the sound of someone in agony but unable to scream. Meredith jerks around to face the trio at the back of the Jumper.

"Sir. Sir, are you alright? Sir? Major?" Ford is in Johns face trying to get him to respond, but John just begins to scream. One filled with agony, "Sir, are you alright? Sir? Major? Major!"

John shoves Aiden away. The shove is so powerful that Ford is sent crashing into the wall of the ship. Meredith, her surprise, accidently pushes on one of the crystals. The sound of the engines going is heard briefly, and then the only sound in the compartment is John's heavy, pain-filled, breathing.

" _What's going on?"_  Dr. Weir asks.

Mere stares at the panel for a second before turning to face John. She sees Ford slowly move from where he had landed on the ground, "It reacted to either the salt or the water."

" _Or a combination of both,"_ Beckett contemplates.  _"Did it loosen its hold on Major Sheppard?"_

"Negative."

"If anything, it dug in more." Teyla tacks on.

"Please don't do that again," John groans.

Meredith looks back to the control panel as Ford replies, "I won't, sir. I'm sorry."

" _It was mos' likely a defensive reflex ta salt water."_

"We moved," Mere announced looking around, "When you fell, I must've crossed one of the circuits, I think the engine fired for a microsecond. It stopped though." Her eyes fell to the ground near the cockpit, "Oh no."

"What?" Ford asks, apprehensive.

Meredith looks as the glowing blue of the Stargate peeking out from next to the wall, "So much for plan 'A'."

"What?"

"When the Stargate closes now, every molecule of air in this compartment is going to rush out through there." Mere points at the ground. Silence reigns through the Jumper.

"We slid in further," Teyla mutters.

Meredith lowers herself to the floor, sitting with her back against the seats and her knees drawn up, "Fifteen minutes."

" _Ford, what can you tell me?"_  Elizabeth breaks through the disbelief.

"The Jumper has shifted slightly. The rear compartment has now breached the event horizon. Dr. McKay…" Ford looks at Meredith as she glances at him, "Dr. McKay is still hopeful that she can retract the drive pod in time."

Mere turns to John. He's staring at her.  _I know you can do this._  Meredith nods, stands up and gets back to work.

" _Understood. We haven't come up with anything yet, but there's still time."_

"Yes ma'am."

" _How's Major Sheppard?"_

"I'm still here," John grunts.

" _Hang in there Major. We're working on the problem."_

"I know you are. Uh… listen, I'd like to say something while I still can."

"Oh, no you don't John Sheppard!" Meredith turns to glare at him before turning back, "You are not dying on me. We are going to get through this."

"If I was, he wouldn't have let me go," John denies.

" _Who wouldn't have let you go?"_

"The Wraith. I guess he just saw me as good as dead, 'cause he just walked away. So… what I wanted to say was-"

" _Save your strength, John, and tell me in person."_

"This is important."

" _I'm listening."_

"We should send him through the event horizon," Ford interrupts, "If Dr. McKay figures it out in time we can fix the Major up on the other side. If she doesn't, well, we're all dead anyway."

"Yeah, no pressure or anything."

" _Major Sheppard would effectively be in suspended animation for the entire time."_ Grodin pipes up.

" _We cannae risk it."_ Beckett rejects.

"Why not?" Ford asks

" _If th' creature reacted tha' violently ta a few drops o' water, who knows how it would react ta th' Stargate."_

" _You're telling me that Major Sheppard can't come through the gate while that thing is on him?"_

"Then we must do something now," Teyla announces.

There's a pause and then, "Hit me with the defibrillator." Meredith turns to him.

" _You may be on ta somethin' Major!"_

"You said that might kill him," Aiden reminds them.

"That's the idea," John groans out.

"I do not understand," Teyla declares.

" _Teyla, you said tha' this creature is like a Wraith."_

"Yes."

" _Then how do ya think it would respond if, God forbid, Major Sheppard were ta die right now?"_

"It would stop feeding."

" _Exactly, jus' as a Wraith would."_

" _How is that an Idea?"_ Weir demands.

" _We're suggestin' tha' we fool th' creature inta thinkin' its prey is dead by stoppin' th' Major's heart. If I'm right, it should let him go."_

"And when the thing lets him go, we give him another jolt?"

" _You can give tha' a try. If it doesnae work, send him through th'event horizon. He'll keep there as good as a deep freeze."_

" _John, are you sure you want to do this?"_

"I want this dame thing off of me."

" _Lieutenant Ford, do you know how ta do this?"_

"Yes sir. Teyla, cut his shirt open."

"What?"

"Cut his shirt open! Charging to two hundred. Move his tags."

"What?"

"Move his chains to the side."

" _Place th' lubrication right on th' paddles."_

"Ready to go. Once the bug falls off, I'm going to have to kill it. I'll wait for it to charge up again, and I'll give him another jolt. McKay…" Meredith looks at him, "if we can't restart his heart on the first try I'm going to need the bulkhead door open again."

"Got it," Meredith walks over to the consul, and opens the door. The blue glow from the Gate washes over the compartment. "You better live through this John."

"I'm planning on it."

"One of us is going to have to get him through," Ford cuts in.

"I will," Teyla volunteers.

Ford holds the paddles up, charged and ready. He hesitates.

"Just do it!" John shouts.

Aiden presses the paddles down onto John's chest. A burst of static noise comes from the group. John's body rises from the ground and drops back down with a thud. Aiden puts his fingers to John's neck, "No pulse!"

Teyla reaches for the bug and gives it a pull, "It won't come off."

" _It may take a moment."_ Beckett calms.

" _Lieutenant?"_ Weir inquires.

Teyla tries to pull it off again, and this time it detaches. She tosses the bug onto the left bench. Meredith moves to the other side eying the bug as she moves. Aiden jerks up and pull his gun and shots the bug until it starts to leak a think fluid substance. It lies still as Teyla rushes over and wraps up the bug in her jacket. Ford prepares the paddles and shocks John once more. His body jerks up and falls down. Aiden checks for a pulse.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing! Let's get him through!"

Teyla and Meredith rush forward to help maneuver John to the event horizon. Teyla and Ford moving him and Meredith clearing the path. Once close enough, Mere helps Aiden turn John so Teyla could wrap her arms around his waist.

"Got him?" Ford confirms.

"Yes." Teyla drags John backwards.

As soon as they disappear into the wormhole Meredith closes the door and Aiden radios Atlantis, "This is Lieutenant Ford. The creature's successfully been removed from Major Sheppard, but we were unable to revive him. Both he and Teyla are now on the other side of the event horizon."

" _Thank you, Lieutenant. Meredith, you have seven minutes."_

Meredith turns to the crystals once again, "I'm only halfway through all the possible circuit pathways and time's almost up. You should consider stepping into the event horizon." Ford gives her a look, "I'm serious. I'll keep trying 'til the end, but given your choices, that's a far better way to go."

"And leaving you here alone with that thing wrapped up in my jacket?"

"You did make sure it was dead right?"

"It's dead."

"Good because explosive decompression and death by suffocation with that thing on my face is possibly the-"

"Work!"

"Sorry."

" _Mere, we're down to two minutes!"_

"I know the time! I've still got over two dozen circuits I haven't tried!"

" _Don't be so methodical! Just pick one at random!"_

"If I do that I run the risk of attempting to activate the same circuit twice!"

" _JUST TRY!"_

"I'm telling you there's no way-" The sound of whirling gears is heard, "Wait. Think I did it! Elizabeth I think the engine pods retracted!"

" _Then why haven't you shown up?"_

"She's right," Aiden declares, "Why aren't we moving?"

"It's inertia," Meredith realizes, "The drive shut down before we went through the Stargate. We've shed all of our forward momentum."

Ford begins jumping against the front wall.

"You're wasting your time. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

"Then what are we going to do?"

" _Wait! The rear hatch. Blow the rear hatch! It should give you enough thrust to make it through."_ Kavanagh exclaims.

"That could do it, but the only mechanism to blow the hatch is back here," Meredith explains, gesturing to it.

Ford opens the bulkhead doors and moves to Mere, "You go through I'll do it."

"What? No, you'll get blown into space!"

Aiden begins crowding her to the gate, "There's no time to argue! Just go!"

"But I really should be-"

"Go!" Aiden pushes her and she hits the portal.

Meredith stumbles into Teyla and John, before helping Teyla lower him to the ground. Mere looks out the front and sees the control center right in front of them. She settles down next to John and grasps his hand as the Jumper rises up to the bay. She turns to Teyla, "Go check on Ford, he just decompressed the Jumper in space."

Medical rushes in as Teyla heads to do just that. Carson kneels next to John as the others set up a defibrillator.

"Clear." Carson shocks John but the heart monitor that was set up continues to flat line. Carson continues to work as Elizabeth walks into the compartment, "Clear."

"Well done, Meredith." Weir praises as John's heart continues to not beat.

Meredith shakes her head as tears begin to run down her face. Carson has the medics put an airbag to John's mouth and use it to push air into his lungs.

A steady beeping begins to fill the Jumper, "We've got a pulse!"

Carson listens with a stethoscope, "It's getting stronger," He takes off the stethoscope and places his ear to John's chest, "He's going to be okay."

Meredith falls back against the first mate's chair and hold her mouth as tears streak down her face. The adrenaline and anxiety to the past forty-five minutes falling and fading. And in the back of her mind an over whelming sense of joy flutters around.

-SGA-

Meredith is sitting next to John's infirmary bunk, holding his hand, as Teyla and Aiden stand behind her. John relaxes back and makes faces at Mere as he lets the nurse apply a bandage to his neck. Meredith just grins at him and plays with his fingers, both of them happy that they're alive.

Elizabeth walks in and moves to the end of John's bed, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I could really go for a steak right about now."

"So like normal then?" Meredith asks.

"Shush you," John covers her mouth with his hand and pushes slightly.

"Dr. Beckett says he'll be fine in a couple of days," Ford informs Weir.

"We should let you rest," Teyla instists.

"No, you should get me some food."

"I think that can be arranged," Elizabeth agrees.

Ford taps John's shoulder before turning to leave with Teyla, "Welcome back, sir."

"I have to admit, it is a pleasant surprise."

"By the way," Elizabeth steps up to Mere's side, "What were you going to say?"

"When?"

"Before, when you thought, you know…"

"Oh, that…"

"I didn't want you to say it at the time, but now I'm curious."

"I was going to say, um… Mere you have to promise not to hit me."

"Why?" Meredith asks, skeptical.

"Just promise."

"I promise I won't hit you for whatever you're going to say."

"Okay. I was going to say, 'Please don't let Mere throw away my 1984 Orange Bowl football tape.'"

Ford starts laughing as Mere mumbles, "Now I wish I hadn't've made that promise."

"Really?" Weir stares at him incredulously.

"She would throw it away in a heartbeat if I wasn't around to distract her from it."

"Sad part is," Meredith laminates, "He's being completely truthful. I've try to throw it away several times already."

"Good night," Teyla says as she guides a giggling Aiden out of the infirmary.

Elizabeth takes her leave as well, "Take care, Major Sheppard."

John nods to her as he settles down into the bed. He pulls his and Mere's hands to his lips where he presses her hand, "I love you Mere. So much."

"I love you too, you goof."

They gaze at each other before John closes his eyes to get some sleep. As John rest, Meredith stays wide awake as she feels a rush of contented happiness. A feeling that she knows is not hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry this took so long. I had trouble with this episode, it was basically all dialogue. But I did it, just in time for Florence to hit and cause power outages. Yay. Not. For all of you in her path, please stay safe, if you're reading this after being hit, I hope you recover soon.
> 
> For all of you that have just joined, WELCOME! For all returners, WELCOME BACK!
> 
> For all of you that reviewed, kudos, or bookmarked thank you.
> 
> For all of you on Tumblr, I have created a page that I'll probably post omakes to in between posts. username is angel2uffn.
> 
> Thank you! TTFN, see you next up date!


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